this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2025
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I think suffering is just part of the human condition. It has always been there and always will. To think that our times are special enough to warrant a movement like antinatalism, is ridiculously arrogant. It's like cultusts who commit mass suicide because the aliens will come rescue them.
In fact, suffering has been on a steady decline for ages.
Antinatalism is a question first asked by ancient Greek philosophers. The modern antinatalism movement is… not so philosophical.
I’m now the mod of antinatalism on lemmy.world because the previous mod bombed a fertility clinic and I don’t want crazies like him running the sub or posting extremist content.
I believe that discussing antinatalism as an answer rather than a thought exercise is a mistake.
I reject antinatalism because I believe that suffering is not always a negative.
Could an artist not suffer for their work that brings great joy to themselves and others? Is that suffering not then worthy and good?
If something is worthy and good then denying others the opportunity to exist and be worthy and good is itself immoral.
This is an awful take. Not suffering is always preferable to suffering.
Does this mean that you have a moral imperative to have children because there are "worthy and good" things in the world? Is the logic "I can have children, there is good in the world, therefore it's immoral to deny a potential life the opportunity to experience life"?
I say this as someone who can, but won't, have children, and who grew up in an evangelical church - that's a bizarre logic that feels an awful lot like some fundamentalist Christian quiverfull shit.
Is it? I prefer suffering the aches and pains of exercise knowing that caring for my body will reward me in the long term.
The definition of suffering we’re working with here is very broad. Not all suffering is pointless, unbearable or even involuntary.
People so afraid of suffering they would rather not ever have existed lack resilience.
To me it’s a sort of thought exercise and conversation starter, not my complete philosophical approach to the topic. I’m not religious in the slightest and probably best described as anti-theist.
I'd put it to you that suffering, in the sense that we're discussing, would be something more than the pain of exercise - the people of Gaza are suffering, when I go into the 'pain cave' on a bike ride I'm enduring something for the benefit of it; I can stop, pause or relent if it becomes overbearing. It's type 2 fun. It's not suffering if you can opt out; challenge, and difficulty arent bad; suffering is.
It's interesting that your anti-theistic approach has led you to what I would see as a very religious adjacent approach to reproduction; my worry with approaches like the outline you gave is that it can end up punishing any sort of reluctance to have kids (and can paint those who aren't able to as immoral in some way). Not saying that's you're intention, just saying.
But the premise is that the suffering is a certainty, which the suffering we’re seeing in Gaza is absolutely not a certainty for everyone who is born.
The risk of suffering something unbearable is lower now than at any time in history and will hopefully only get lower.
It is possible to hold the view that having children can be a good thing and that people should be free to choose for themselves. They aren’t conflicting beliefs.
You're moving the goalposts.
You made two key points;
My primary objections are
Gaza was an example of a point, and of my own views on suffering; that suffering is something you cannot escape and that you do not choose, not something that's difficult or temporarily painful you can choose to do which will ultimately produce some good. I'd posit that everyone experiences some form of suffering in their lives, to varying degrees, and the minimisation of this can only ever be a net positive.
Personally I don't want children for a number of reasons, but boiling it down to a moral reason is reductive, unhelpful, and can be dangerous.
I'm not moving any goalposts, my responses are keeping in mind the original arguments of antinatalism, that sufferring is inevtiable and that all sufferring should be avoided.
The oldest writing on this (that I am aware of) is Sophocles's Oedipus at Colonus, written shortly before Sophocles's death in 406 BC:
Look at the examples given, something as simple as envy being defined as sufferring. Loneliness in old age? This doesn't seem to match how you are defining sufferring, and so our approaches differ.
Torture is temporarily painful and we all agree that's sufferring and not something you would choose.
Relationship breakups, especially one you didn't choose to end, can be difficult but many people would agree that they sufferred during and after a breakup.
The premise is that sufferring is an inevitablility which you seem to agree with but sufferring as you're defining it doesn't seem to be a guaranteed experience.
You could conceivably live your entire life and never experience something that you cannot escape and that you do not choose, not something that’s difficult or temporarily painful. You could even choose a peaceful death to wrap up your sufferring free life with the way you've defined sufferring, even if it's still unlikely it is a possibility, which goes against the original antinatalist claim that sufferring is inevitable.
Obviously sufferring comes in degrees of severity. I would never agree that not being born would be better than going through a breakup, or that its a moral imperative not to create new life because they might experience relationship difficulties.
However I would agree never being born would be preferrable to the death suffered by Hisaschi Ouchi, who was kept alive for as long as possible against his wishes so that doctors could study how extreme radiation poisoning would progress.
I respect that and have zero interest in your reasons, it is your choice.
It can certainly be dangerous, and I volunteered to moderate a space for discussion on the topic to try and mitigate some of that danger. To, potentially, reduce sufferring ;)
Do I get this right? You're the mod of the antinatalism community on lemmy.world, but you reject antinatalism?
That sounds like a difficult duality to balance, as a mod.
Disagreeing with a philosophical stance doesn’t mean that I need to be biased in moderation.
I find antinatalism to be an interesting philosophical exercise and welcome discussion about that and people’s personal choices based on the philosophy.
...as long as they aren't bombing stuff.
Which brings up interesting questions about liberty and if you have a right to help people who can't ask for help or don't want it.