Antinatalist here - the rhetoric in that post is horrible, and is not representative of antinatalism as a whole.
Antinatalism isn’t the belief that a certain group shouldn’t reproduce - it’s that nobody should. The world is fucked, and nonconsensually bringing anyone into it is morally reprehensible. It’s not eugenics, it’s voluntary extinctionism.
For the people that have been born, however, everyone deserves respect and equity. Ableism, or any other kind of discrimination, is just wrong, and makes you a shitty person. Just like the person who made that post.
According to some predictions, climate change will cause up to 3 billion refugees by the end of the century. The world isn't exactly the most stable right now either, in part due to the beginning effects of climate change.
Not that I necessarily agree with it, but coming to the conclusion that it's not necessarily moral to bring a child into that world or contribute to further suffering, isn't particularly insane or inhumane.
It's not a particularly novel or outlandish idea either. From Sophocles to Shakespeare. To be or not to be, is an age old question.
Not that going on about how much you hate children and people who have children all day on the internet, is a particularly healthy hobby, obviously.
And to add to all this, the ice caps will likely be melted completely in the next decade causing the Blue Ocean Event, where massive amounts of previously reflected solar radiation will instead be absorbed by the oceans, causing the release of huge amounts of methane from the sea bed and the earth to cook in it's own atmosphere.
This is a good explanation for anyone interested in further reading on the BOE. Look this up for yourselves with other sources though.
(You'll want to find out how much ice coverage is left at the poles, how much we've lost this year so far, and the loss projection for if the next 5 years are as hot as 2023. Then look up what will happen to the earth with all the unreflected solar radiation we'll be absorbing without the ice caps).
Billions of people are going to die in the next 30 years due to climate collapse. There may not be 3 billion of us left to be clinate refugees by the end of the century.
I’m not saying we should kill people, I’m saying making more is wrong.
It is a nonconsensual act whereupon you are forcing life and all its travesty onto another being, when they were perfectly fine not existing.
Call me insane if you want, I couldn’t care less. Humans are a plague upon both other humans and this planet as a whole, and bringing someone else into the world to be both a victim and perpetrator of the issue is wrong.
I think your perspective about life is blinded by pessimism, and you're treating that pessimism as absolute fact. Many people view life as a wonderful thing, are thrilled to exist for the time that they do, and see creating a new life to experience the wonders of living as a gift.
Humans are a plague upon both other humans and this planet as a whole
You're sounding like Agent Smith from the matrix. Come on. Unplug from the negative feedback loop for a bit.
There are good things to experience, yes. If you’re already alive, then by all means, seek to find happiness and enjoyment. Don’t force someone else into that endless struggle. You can make no guarantees that their life won’t be one of pure suffering, and that’s not a risk I’m willing to take.
And again, we are destroying this planet - not just for us, but for all life on it. We are the problem.
I agree with the other commenter recommending therapy. When you don't see it as "life is pain and the future is hopeless", you might sound less like a scifi villain calling for human extinction.
“Existence is suffering” is a foundational tenet for many worldviews and religions, not just antinatalism. Existence is literally the first cause to all suffering - no existence, no suffering.
Acknowledging that doesn’t make me depressed or pessimistic, it’s just acceptance how things are.
You’re free to live in whatever fantasy you want, though. That’s your right.
Also, responding to differing worldviews with “get help” is generally bad form
Your worldview is literally calling for the extinction of all humans. You need to come back to reality and stop convincing yourself that this is normal or healthy.
If someone experiences so much suffering that they are pushed to “opt out of it”, it would have been better not to force them to live and experience the suffering in the first place. Just because someone can take themselves out of it doesn’t make the suffering okay to inflict.
Yes, and I think that is bad. I just also think that this isn't because of anything intrinsic to being alive and/or autistic, but largely due to external factors.
Yeah righto bud, I'm not victim blaming anybody. I'm just shit-talking a bunch of sad defeatists on the internet who think they're smarter than everybody else just because they've taken the fucking blackpill when in reality they're so far down this hole that they're running defense for fucking eugenics against their own community.
On the off chance that you were being sincere in your question as to what we can do to actually improve the situation, the answer is to participate in an existing community dedicated to that very purpose. Collective action is generally way more effective than anything an individual can do. Are there barriers to doing this? Potentially. What can you do about that? I guess you'll just have to figure it out; I don't fucking know the specific circumstances of your personal situation, nor those of any groups around you.
So what are you doing? I mean aside from making lots of silly assumptions about me and the other people here who are politely trying to explain our points of view about this.
How are you making the world better for people with autism? And how many kids do you plan on having? Any plans for how you and all the kids will cope with the water and food shortages over the next ten to thirty years?
What the fuck do you want from me? I don't owe you shit. You asked a question I suspected and am now convinced was in bad faith, and I answered it anyway.
You're talking a lot of shit about me making baseless assumptions for somebody out here asking questions that are entirely premised on baseless assumptions yourself, such as (wrongly) assuming not only that I'm capable of having children (I intentionally had my gonads removed, not that it's any of your business) but also that I'd want to (children have a tendency to be noisy, outgoing and energetic in a way that doesn't jive with my own autism). I just don't have a problem with people who genuinely believe that they can give their children a good life having any, as I'm not convinced that a good life is impossible (yet).
Piss off with your bullshit "politely trying to explain our points of view" civility politics, we were past that when you took the least charitable interpretation you could have done and misconstrued my point of view as somehow placing blame on the victims of the current state of affairs.
Genuinely asking here.
nonono: you're "Just Asking Questions." At least, I believe that's the vernacular.
My position is simple: for as long as there is any positive experience to be had, life can be worthwhile and it's not up to anyone to make a decision based on the contrary view to that on the behalf of anyone else. Also eugenics is fucking vile.
Firstly, I don't have a kid. Being sterile (and also just not wanting any), I am quite unlikely to ever have a kid. Ideally we as a society would work to avoid water wars happening. My point is that we should improve our collective state of affairs somewhat, rather than resigning ourselves to the idea that to exist is to suffer like a bunch of loser doomers.
This is an incredibly dumb idea. It will also die out for incredibly obvious reasons because everyone else will keep reproducing while antinatalists descend into irrelevancy.
Genesis 1:28 and al-Baqarah 2:187 instruct reproduction. Antinatalists are destined for the fire.
I think your belief system is a rare example actual Evil. You're literally advocating for the elimination of music, of art, of science, of anyone who could even appreciate those things. No more Rembrandt or Dali or Mozart or ... anything. And you've gotten so twisted up inside, ostensibly because some people live sad, hard lives, that you think that's a good thing.
Isn't it just the belief that nobody should have kids though? I'd have thought the while extinction part would rank higher than the culture loss. And evil seems a bit extreme, sounds more like apathy and loss of hope to me. Not saying there aren't some messed up people in the group though.
Yeah, this. My biggest issue with the fundamental anti-natalist position is that it's a totally blackpilled one that ultimately devalues any positive experiences life brings when compared with even the potential for any bad thing to happen, regardless of magnitude.
Your assuming antinatalism is a plague that will infect everyone with "I aint having kids". 99% of people out here trying to have ten kids it seems. There are more trans people than antinatalists. Y'all are freaking out about a niche philosophy.
They're not advocating for a lower population. They're advocating for human extinction.
As in, we should all let the torch of consciousness burn out. I don't know if I'd call it evil, but it's definitely one of those severely misguided takes that you almost exclusively see on the internet.
At current rate we will never leave this planet, and it will die. If not by climate change then the Sun will go Red Giant and swallow us. Or a meteor. Something. All species will go extinct sometime.
You're here afraid a few people believing that we should go extinct when there are 8 billion people and rising is gonna cause actual extinction. Fucking calm your tits, dude.
Arguing that people must exist so as to maintain art and science is rather silly. Art and science exist for our utility; we are under no obligation to them. If people decide not to reproduce, that is their right.
I’m advocating for the elimination of poverty, disease, death, pollution, war, hate, and all human suffering.
Sure, there are some neat things in this world that are worth experiencing if you were forced to live. If you’re already alive, of course you should seek to find happiness and enjoyment in the little time you have.
Still doesn’t justify forcing more people into the world to exacerbate the problems we have - overpopulation being a major one.
It’s not evil. Things were fine before us, and things will be fine after us.
"Things" were not observable by anything with the capability to designate them as such, so no they were not "fine" in any meaningful sense of the word.
You're literally doing the speech the villain does to make him seem reasonable.
Semantics, but if you really want to get into it, a lack of ability for things to be good or bad is still better than the existence and perpetuation of suffering.
Also, responding to differing worldviews with “see a therapist” and comparing them to a villain is fucking disgusting
Surely the core arguments that an anti-natalist might bring forward apply to any sentient beings, right? Like, a cat didn't give prior consent to existing any more than a human did. Ergo, I do think it's reasonable to point out that there would be no observer that could witness, much less enjoy any benefit from, the anti-natalist ideal world.