Philosophical question: Spinoff of Mayan doomsday thread

[RealSNR]

So this post by bowener got me thinking (the bolded part is the section I'm talking about)...

Originally Posted by bowener

I dont actually think there Earth is going to end either.

It doesn't take a lot of studying to realize though that we are not the smartest group of humans to live in history, but possibly the most arrogant and ignorant... Romans may have us beat on arrogance.

Whether it points to something bad or not, we are in the middle of an extinction rate that has never been seen in human history (proven by the fossil records). There are several causes to this, but no ideas of how to stop it. If it gets bad enough, or one foundational organism goes extinct, there can be huge repercussions. Honey Bees are a great example, they are disappearing at an unimaginable rate due to disease, chemicals, and unknown factors.

It may not effect us in our life span, but I tend to think about those that will come after me, instead of just my life time, and things may be pretty shitty for them.

And I got to thinking about that point and was simply going to respond to the original post, but this is such a rich question that I think it deserves its own thread.

So let's assume 2012 hits and some sort of gradual decline of civilization begins, whether it be through a sudden change in climate, breakdown of communication satellites, whatever. It's recognized by society as incoming destruction, but nobody knows when it's going to start destroying life.

So let's say you're recently married/united in love/whatever with a spouse (opposite sex necessary here). You know what's coming, but you look around and don't see an exactly unfriendly environment to raise a child.

My question is, is it fair to the child to be conceived at this point in time, where likely at some point in its life, it will have to suffer through an armageddon-type world? The chance of survival is not so great (maybe 20-30%) and if survival is achieved, life will be extremely tough, lonely, and horrific.

The issues at hand are furthering the human race in the face of a likely world-wide catastrophe, as well as fulfilling perhaps your own ambitions as a human on this earth-- to raise a child.

What will it be? Deal? Or no deal?