Asklemmy

Anti natalism right now is pro long term human survival.

There are too many humans on Earth. There are two ways to get the human population down to a point where we can sustainably live here. You can either exterminate most the existing humans or prevent new humans from existing in the first place. Which would you choose?

"Oh but that will trigger a demographic crisis when tbere's too many old people and too few young people!” OK? That's a temporary problem compared to the very very permanent problem of extinction. Which we're on track to doing of we keep living like this. And most of the issues of a demographic crisis has to do with recession and pensions, both unique to capitalism. The solution is to get rid of capitalism, not guilt people into having more kids to keep the capitalist machine alive.

It's incredibly stupid, but for those who truly believe in it it's fine as long as they just use it as a guiding principle in their own lives. But it tends to attract the passionate sort, as any theoretically "anti-suffering" ideology will, so idk, I circle back to it's stupid.

Does someone need an explainer about why suffering is natural, okay, not inevitable, and certainly not the only thing a being can feel? Or that the world is actually quite nice, but we generate suffering within ourselves?

I do not subscribe to the All Life is Suffering idea. Personally enjoy being physically embodied so much. My kids seem glad to exist too. We are the universe looking back at itself, it's just so wonderful to get any time at all here to experience this.

I would never argue for everyone to have babies, at all. You have your own life, do what you want. But I don't at all agree with extinction of all life because "suffering". Yes that is part of life but it's not all of it, not nearly.

I immediately reject any theories that pretend to “know” what they are talking about. I mean WTF are they talking about here ? We have limited senses to sense this world and limited communication capabilities, that was built on top of our fear of death and suddenly these theories trying to claim they “know it all” and this is the “judgment”. WTF. Get off your high horse.

Nobody knows anything. We ALL are just dumb. World is too big to know.

Shouldn't we be asking the unborn this question?

til im not an anti-natalists. I just think people should not have babies. I mean same with letting pets breed needlessly. anywho.

While certainly don't appreciate being born (and correct about life = suffering no gꝏd outweighing it in my case) , dœsn't mean procreation inherently unethical (although true peops often have children for selfish reasons)

Tꝏk lꝏk at antinatalist subreddit some years ago (curiosity) , felt more like contempt for (women|children) disguised as philosophical stance . "Breeder" used lots there :

• Implies women's primary functions producing children (cannot be any thing other) , reduces women to their capacity for pregnancy
• Implies all women "chuse" to have kids
• Derogatory word toward black women during slavery , where they were forced to have children that would later be sold into said slavery

Also don't think demanding every one stop having children dœs anything to reduce inherent suffering that comes with being living organism

I certainly like humus more than humans, so...

But seriously, anti-natalism sits on consequentialism as a hard to deny entailment. If you believe in consequentialism and utilitarianism, you're basically there.

In a society whose official ideology is that "There is No Alternative", antinatalism is basically a dressed up version of "it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism".

It's basically just lack of imagination. Doomerist defeatism.

I think it is fine. No one should produce or raise children they do not want.

I still support our society focusing on improving the material conditions for every generation, new and old.

There should not be conflict there.

Theoretical weakness:

Anti-natalism is a deeply pessimistic take on the possibilities of the human experience. Where, once, people looked to push the boundaries of humanity's knowledge and experience (e.g. psychedelic drugs, space exploration, art movements, radical politics), this movement sees the scale as so heavily tipped towards suffering that the bit of joy and wonder we experience is not even worth it. Its calculus looks to me to be similar to Effective Altruism, because it measures all the suffering to come for the unborn as a greater infinity than all the good they will experience. It simply offers a different conclusion: instead of putting those at the top of the hierarchies in our world in charge reducing/ending suffering (a solution I supply disagree with), AN instead just wants life to end because reducing suffering enough can't be done.

To me, this leaves no room for the possibility of changing the human experience for the better. If we're just trying to do some accounting as to whether it's worth having kids on a societal scale, couldn't we make it worth it? Instead of extinction, why not try radically different ways of organizing society to get rid of the hierarchies that create most of our suffering? One lesson i take from the history i've been around for is that the status quo only lasts for so long.

Finally, the idea of unborn people not having consented to birth is odd. They do not exist, so they have no desires, needs, or ability to consent. We can equally say they don't "consent" to non-existence and are stuck there until they are born. When life first came into existence in the universe, was consent involved?

Practical weakness:

If this movement ever goes beyond a purely voluntary movement, to the point of enacting policy or attempting to prevent births in any way, it will become monstrous very quickly. Every such program will face resistance and, without an anti-carceral component to the movement, will have governments (or roving mobs) criminalizing birth, sterilizing people, and destroying the infrastructure of child care. At their most extreme, "anti-natalist" movements could advocate for the murder of every single person on earth, because that would be the surest way of preventing birth. All of these things would multiply the suffering of everyone, but would be "justifiable" in their eyes because it would "prevent the suffering" of innumerable people to be born in the future. Would global nuclear war achieve their goal?

Basically Malthusian eco-fascism. Nobody should be forced to have kids, having kids is a huge commitment that should be reserved for those who want kids, but the "humans are the virus" crowd just play into reactionary hands and cede all control to those directly responsible for the worst excess.

I don't want to die, but if I could un-exist like Marty McFly disappearing from a photograph I would choose it in an instant. I have a pretty privileged life but, even for me, if I try to honestly inventory my experience there appears to be more suffering than pleasure. I don't think this is unfair or unnatural, I believe suffering is integral to being alive because it's how organisms respond and adapt to a world that is constantly trying to dis-organize them. Basically you can't have life without it, given the laws of physics.

I don't think "humans are a virus" is correct because it's a pejorative and I don't think viruses or humans are inherently bad. If I was going to classify anything as bad it would be the capacity to suffer, which is so foundational it actually informs the concept of "bad" rather than they other way around. I think suffering also becomes more acute the more processing power you have. Unfortunately for Agent Smith, the "virus" is intelligence and the machines already caught it.

I admit my ideas are probably half-baked on this because I just don't feel articulate or intelligent enough to describe it. All I have is my own experience. As far as I can see, it appears that more complex animals have a greater capacity for suffering than less complex ones. It seems that the mechanisms of suffering are "body stuff", mainly nerves, and more complex organisms simply have more of those in more robust configurations. This might just be cope, because the alternative is horrific. As a kid I looked through a microscope and saw an entire world of rotifers and paramecia ripping each other apart, struggling for energy, and realized that if all organisms can experience the same "level" of suffering than we are truly in Hell. It was literally inconceivable.

I don't care for the "antinatalist" label. I admit that suffering is hard to quantify and may be totally subjective. This is why I don't mind what other people choose to believe. It's none of my business. Based on my subjective experience I will not be doing so. Sometimes people pry into why I don't have kids and I am forced to expose my beliefs. Suddenly, in their eyes, I become an evangelist. I'm not. They won't engage with the notion of 'the non-existent mind". They constantly argue from the position of a hypothetical mind that chooses stuff. Eventually they think I'm suicidal because in their mind dying and non-existence are the same. They also get angry and insulted even though I'm leaving more resources for their own children by not having my own which, by their logic, should be good. So I just don't bother. Do what you want. Maybe they are right.

I guess I've accepted it. Seeing how history has gone, and current US politics, your dependent are likely to be victims of war, slavery, diseases, or experimentation. I have to wonder what is the "good life" or pleasant? Like is it just taking drugs and having sex all the time? We can't have endless creature comforts.

It's just me life doesn't have high highs but very low lows

life entails inevitable suffering, death is inevitable, and humans are born without their consent

Doesn't that apply to all living beings? Wouldn't that mean that the morally correct thing to do is to prevent all organisms from procreating, as it inevitably leads to more suffering?

On a large scale, doomed (see also: the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.

On a personal scale, not having children is a perfectly legitimate choice.

Capitalists consider unemployed people dead weight.

A tree trunk is dead weight too and that's what keeps the tree stable.

Same with society. A certain amount of dead weight actually provides benefits. It provides possibilities in case of urgencies and provides a stable environment in peace times.

It depends heavily. If youre choosing not to have kids because you think youre unable to provide a decent quality of life, or because you just dont feel the urge, or because you're having too much fun looking after #1 then cool.

I accidentally stumbled into r/antinatalism once though, and their reasoning seems to be "too scared to kill myself. Life is suffering. Fuck your cumpet." Which, you know, its hard to argue against but its not a reason that sits well with me.