No, you're a fool if you truly believe this. Every generation has had some form of this feeling. Imagine considering having children during WW1, or WW2, or during Vietnam or Korea? Then after that we had McCarthyism and the Cold War - all seemingly hopeless days. Yet there is still so much beauty in the world, and there is so much that makes life worth living.
My son will turn 2 in a few months. It's tough being a parent, but it is entirely worth it. You cannot give into myopia - every time I hear him laugh, I am reminded that there is good in the world and it is worth fighting for. He will have his own challenges to face in life, but it is our job as a society to equip him, and all of the next generation, with the tools they need to succeed.
I'm troubled about the future, but you cannot make that stop you from striving for better days. As Marcus Aurelius said, never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.
I've been re-reading the Lord of the Rings lately, and there is a lot there on this topic, but I always think back to Sam. We all should be so lucky to have a friend like that, but what he says when all hope seems to be lost is truly striking:
"It's like the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad has happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it'll shine out the clearer. I know now folks in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something. That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for."
Tolkien wrote this after his experiences fighting in The Somme. If he could find hope and found the courage to keep striving for better days, then so should we.
That’s fair, and not an unreasonable choice. What I can’t get over is people acting like that’s the only reasonable choice, and that people who have children are idiots.
Just look around in this thread and you’ll see some smug ass attitudes. It kind of reminds me of those 14 year old kids who feel immensely smart because they’re atheist, you know?
I don't want to have kids simply because I'm miserable and never consented to being born. I am not suicidal but I would have rather not been born in the first place.
Most people grow up happier than me, so I can't really make a philosophical argument out of my own experience. All the best to you and your family!
I’d say you can find things that make life worth living if you’re already here. But if someone's not "here", why drag someone you're supposed to love the
most into this mess when we can’t even properly look after the children that are already here.
I’m not anti-child - I’d consider adopting if it didn’t cost like $20k. I’m anti-new child for myself, and yeah I get sad when I see other people have kids, especially now. It's like having another kid when you lived in the middle of the dust bowl and people were actively dying from starvation and the dust. Probably not the best time to have kids, similar to now. They just couldn't easily make the choice to not have kids back then.
There are tons of arguments in favour of having kids like what if they cure cancer etc.
However, for myself, I truly believe there will be an ecological collapse due to climate change if not during my lifetime, in the immediate next generation. And we’re still not doing enough. I don’t want to flee natural disasters with a child in tow. One of best things you can do for the climate is not have kids. I'm privileged enough to make that choice so I did, but it's not my only reason. You got late stage capitalism and the accelerating concentration of resources with the hyper wealthy, war / nuclear war, and the fact that pregnancy is one of most risky things I can medically do. Social media, the toxic drug supply, the rise of fascism (again), microplastics in literally fucking everything. I don't even think we'll have social healthcare or social security in Canada by the time I die because they're gutting our programs so badly.
I get that people have a strong reaction to their choices being called immoral. Morality looks different for everyone. However, the counterargument of "Well I have children and they're great and bring me so much joy etc" falls on deaf ears, because it truly does not sound like joy to me and when I say I am anti-child for myself I am telling you that. It's like trying to convince someone skydiving is the greatest thing - some people love it, but not my cup of tea. It is so foreign to me that whenever I hear parents say this it feels like they are trying to convince themselves that they made the right choice.
Have you watched Idiocracy? I consider myself a smart guy, and having children is my way to fight against the world getting stupider.
Also, it is a joy. Yeah, it's expensive, and yeah, it's a ton of work. But it's like working on a very big project that you know you'll be proud of when it's done. I didn't understand it before because I only experienced other people's children, but it's different with your own children in a way that's hard to explain.
I'd have to disagree from the angle that, you cannot philoshpy your way out of ecology. If you actually look at a population graph for any species which experiences a massive spike in birthrates, and what comes for them afterwards, you would probably come to a conclusion that the rate at which we've been producing kids is very unsustainable, and while we probably shouldn't tell people not to have kids completely we should probably begin to consider how to transition towards more sustainable population numbers. A given ecosystem can only sustain so much of one species before it begins to break down. Our Eco system is the entire world and it is very much breaking down as we hit record temperatures year after year. There were lights at ends of tunnels during every war as they've always like, ended with a winning side that could rebuild/regrow, and even ecological collapses have been recovered from by humans but we're not going to get to be the humans that recover, and it doesn't look like our kids will be either. So, if we want to have kinda okay lives we should maybe consider minimizing the impact from what is about to happen, and also not bringing children into a world that has pretty much no chance of being better for them than it was for us.
You're conflating population growth with capitalistic and exploitative growth. the fact that we're destroying our ecology does have little to do with the population and everything to do with capitalist overextraction.
I agree that having kids can be awesome, but the idea it's foolish to see it as a waste of time is shitty as well. OP is perfectly reasonable to find it terrible, because for many people, it is. People are less happy after having children on average, as alien and counterintuitive as it may seem to you. It's a spectrum, with many people actually being happier, or at least more content with their life after. However, many people don't.
The problem is that people make the mistake of seeing children as a means rather than an end. If they knew the truth, that raising children is the end goal for a parent rather than a step to something else, they wouldn't want to do it. Those people shouldn't be mislead. If you won't get satisfaction out of nurturing your kid, it's better for both you and your potential offspring that you live your own life. The kid might grow up and love life, but both of you will suffer for it.
Someone else, someone who really wants to change diapers and deal with tantrums to see a human grow, can raise the next generation just fine. If you want to pass on genes or whatever, but see no purpose beyond that, then have someone adopt them and be on your way. It'd be a win-win for us both.
OP is claiming having children is wrong, in other words that people who have children are wrong. They’re not saying that it’s not for them but might be the right choice for others, but rather that their own choice is the right one.
I'm not sure where they got the impression anyone was blaming children unless they are intentionally being obtuse to attack ideas they disagree with. Similar to people who screech "you hate dogs!?!" when you complain about shitty dog owners.
If I could wave a magic wand, I'd make it so every 12 year old that could make sperm (trans, cis, whatever) gets a reversible vasectomy automatically. Then, if/when they ever want and plan for starting a family, they can take the class on childhood development and how to be a good parent who raises not shitty humans. If they pass, great! They get to undo the vasectomy and try for a family. If not, oh well, no one wanted to have to support your shitty kids in the first place.
I have no idea how something like this could ever actually be implemented in a fair way... Hense the need for the magic wand
Yes. Ultimately, the reason we should let people choose isn't to prevent people who would be bad parents from becoming parents. That's an issue that couldn't be solved directly, but could be indirectly addressed by providing comprehensive sex ed. The real reason we should let people choose is so people aren't forced to do or not do something they don't or do want. People may choose the wrong option for themselves and regret it, but outside forces aren't going to know what they want better than they will.
Magical thought experiments can often mislead, as ethics cannot exist outside of our uncertain, unmagical reality.
I think there is a compelling logic to this idea. You could even make passing the class attendence based in terms of "passing" and make it extremely basic with ideas like, "don't shake babies" being the core syllabus.
I suppose there are two problems with it. Firstly, the practicalities/logistics of implementing it are so far fetched that even the most authoritarian country like China would struggle to implement it. If it is completely impractical then it becomes a mere thought experiment and the only real action you can take after considering it is voting for a political party which prioritises education so more parents are prepared and informed.
The second issue is that - even if you managed to implement such a policy - it is literally eugenics and you would quickly see the genetic makeup of society change and skew towards wealthy people. I don't think we can judge what groups should get the right to exist even if in theory the test is egalitarian.
Lol, I'm not far-left but I do love comments like these.
It's important to note that capitalism is far from the only major exploitative system in the world. This said, I'm part of that particular system, and yes... It truly does feel like we're just cogs in an ever-hungry, broken system.
correct. i would have no problem if this post and the subsequent comments defending it didn’t use the words “wrong” and “immoral.” but they do and that’s fascist territory.
It is discussed with those words because it has been transformed into an ethical question. It is a personal freedom, but it can be asked how ethically correct or incorrect that action is aside from our current laws or [cultural/social] morality.
It's about wonder, ponder. I think that's always important, even for things that seem taboo at first.
I guess each person has a different approach to antinatalism. I don’t want to bring children into the world because unlike many people who outright lie, I do not think it will bring me joy. I’m also scared that if I bring a child into this world and it will suffer as much as I currently do, I won’t be able to live with the blame.
This point is highly dependent on whether or not you believe there is some sort of soul or existence before birth. I cannot argue on this point since this is pure belief, so I will accept your view for the sake of the discussion
Questions how not doing so could have prevented suffering
You could say it prevents suffering, but it also prevents Joy, Love, Friendship. Sure it also prevents Sadness and Grief and so on. It prevents everything by way of not giving life a chance.
If you think you cannot provide a happy life to your children then it's perfectly valid to not want children. But it's egoistic to think that other people should not have kids because of your own world view.
Many Antinatalists believe that life in the current world is filled with so much suffering that it's not worth being born.
But that's like... Your opinion man! Let people make their own choices
Yeah, I'm in the same boat. I'm enjoying playing devil's advocate here, however. People who justify having children as some sort of gift to the world are far less reasonable, and the arguments being made here by those types are exhausting.
I can diffuse just about every comment like this here with a simple word: "adoption".
I agree that bringing life into the world is morally bad. I also agree that eating other animals is morally bad, as is killing, always. However, that does not mean we should not do these things at times. You just need to understand that you are still committing an immoral act for personal gain. There is no such thing as a perfectly moral existence, as the world is a cruel place which cares little about morality and often forces you to be immoral. You should instead work towards being as moral as in out can when you can, and accept that sometimes morality is out of your hands.
In the case of the child: you are bringing a human consciousness kicking and screaming into this world you know to be dangerous and cruel. That is immoral, and you did it either by failing precaution, or out of personal want or instinct. I think to repent, you are morally obligated to give that child a good life at minimum and ideally the best life you can. You are beholden to them until they can live on their own happily, and you are obligated to help them even after that. I also think that if that child resents how you've cared for them, you have no grounds to hold that against them, as you were the one that forced them into this world.
If you cannot do the above, you are should reconsider whether you are fit to have a child.
It is also arguable that to do justice without injustice, the only option is to adopt or guide another person who has no one providing things they need, and I don't think this kindness should be limited to children but children are the most vulnerable.
you do understand that the joker is in the wrong here, right? like in this scene he's a mentally i'll man saying that killing people is funny.
if you genuinely believe that existence has an inherent negative value then i strongly suggest you seek help, and i don't mean that to be facetious. antinatalism is depression turned into a moral philosophy, it posits itself as a solution to suffering by offering an unrealizable future, but really it's an excuse to not even attempt to make the world better.
antinatalism is depression turned into a moral philosophy
Not necessarily. Antinatalism and other pessimistic points of view can be held by non-depressed people. On the internet, it seems like psychological pessimism is the same as philosophical pessimism as many depressed people do adopt these points of view and flood the forums. Adding to that, they often abandon their philosophical pessimism when their depression lifts, leaving a testimony that it is true: only depressed people defend these ideas. But we need only an example of a person that is not depressed and still values antinatalism on its own to demonstrate that your statement is not the case, and I think I might be that example. Many other examples might be found in universities. I hope one day we get a formal social study so that I do not have to give anecdotal "evidence" and personal information.
Now, I'd add to defend those I know that are indeed depressed, we should be debating and trying to refute the philosophy itself. Even if depression is leading them into these kinds of thoughts, we cannot say that this disproves their ideas. Many brilliant discoveries and inventions were reached in what we classify as pathological states. The manic researcher and crafter is an archetype for a reason (e.g., mad scientist, mad artist), and we have not fewer examples of depressed people that made valuable work, such as author F. Dostoevsky. There are two books that are coming to my mind that explain why (specifically) mood disorders are pathological but still let people do great things: A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illnesses and Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. So, as I was saying, the fact that someone is clinically depressed does not inform us about how true or how solid their ideas might be. Discrediting them just because they suffer from depression would be an ad hominem, and, in the moral part, ableism. We need to listen to/read their ideas and discuss the ideas instead.
it posits itself as a solution to suffering by offering an unrealizable future
This is a very misunderstood part of antinatalism. Almost no antinatalist is utopic in their views, that is, few antinatalists think that the point must be to cease all reproduction and that antinatalism fails if they don't. That would be an ideal scenario; there's no suffering without existence, but that is a dream. There are no goals for many antinatalists, just the idea that bringing children into this world is not ethically correct. They might follow antinatalism and not have children or adopt, but not preach much about it because they know practically no one will listen. I, for instance, bring this problem to people that might have not thought about it before. If they go ahead and have children, I'd still think that was not correct, but well, nothing to do but to help take care of this new life. It can be as pragmatic as that.
but really it's an excuse to not even attempt to make the world better.
No. In my case, I try to help in other ways. This right here is an example as I'm trying to broaden the discussion around these topics in a healthy way because I know Reddit has sadly damaged these debates with a lot of insults and bad attitudes from many sides. They insult people, so these people go to their subreddit and insult them back... It is not a good way to first learn about these topics, and many are learning what antinatalism is first on Reddit. I hope Lemmy will be slightly better.
Anyway, I also try to better the world in the ways I can. Still, as a person that values philosophical pessimism, I think we are only saving lives from a neverending fire, or giving palliatives for an incurable disease. I enjoy my life and I try to help others enjoy theirs as much as this existence lets us.
If anything, philosophies around negative utilitarianism, preference utilitarianism, overall pessimism, etc. tend to respect others a lot and value their suffering negatively. That's usually their point. Suffering is not a "necessary side for pleasure" or "a trial from which we gain something" or "something not that bad" or any explanation different cultures have given. Suffering is bad; in a better world, it wouldn't exist like this. It is tragic, but it is reality, so we must face it and combat suffering as best as we can. I'd say these ethical paths inspire protection of others more than others less centered on sentience.
Finally, it is good advice to seek professional help, but not on the sole basis of someone being an antinatalist. If our OP here is depressed, I do recommend visiting a professional.
when i say that it's depression turned into philosophy i mean it in the sense that it is a philosophy that will inevitably lead to depression, or at the very least a skewed world view (think you'll see a red car and you're going to spot a lot of red cars, think existence is suffering and you'll probably focus on suffering a lot).
interesting breakdown tho, i'm glad that you still have hope. i dislike antinatalism and similar philosophies mostry due to their "doomerism" and belief that experiences are somehow cumulative
What a bunch of cringe edgy antinatalist nonsense. Think about the future, if you don't have kids, who are we gonna feed to the machine a few decades from now?
I suppose the previous status quo that anti-natalists want to return to is before the evolution of intelligent life. Word is still out on whether it's immoral for single-celled organisms to reproduce.
I think most people simply don’t appreciate what having a child is and what a massive responsibility it is. Bringing another human being into this world is a gift, one that you should be expected to nurture and love no matter what.
The problem is that many believe that a child is simply an extension of oneself and can be manipulated and contorted into whatever the parent wants. A child is not you, a child is not a free workforce, or laborer. Too many people who do not truly understand what they are bringing into this world are parents and thats why theres so many flawed individuals.
I think most people shouldnt have children and especially right now with the way the worlds headed but to say having children is completely wrong is immensely stupid.
(in addition i myself am abstaining from having children because i dont want the responsibility and i find the lil shits annoying.)
mmmmm no id say youre talking out of your own ass.
Many parents when you truly get down to it seem to think the most important part of being a parent is spreading their genes and maintaining a bloodline.
I truly mean it when I say most parents dont realize how profound having a kid truly is. Otherwise i truly believe people take longer before having kid when it comes to finding another person to raise a kid with, considering what mental illnesses, or diseases that lurk in your dna.
I also think abortion wouldnt be that much of an issue if people consider when its truly the right time to raise a child.
From my experience,I personally agree with that sentiment. A lot of parents and parents to be put a lot on their kids that doesn’t need to be there, many don’t understand how much work it will be, and a lot put in much less work than they should.
It sounds like you are or would be an engaged parent to know it’s a lot of work to raise a little individual, but there are many people from many backgrounds.
One of the problems with the historical Christian system, particularly in the US, is that its predicated on people living in the same place and going to the same church intergenerationally. As people are forced to migrate in order to find employment, they become untethered from their heritage church sites and the attendant communities that added real value to church membership.
The hyper-capitalization of the modern American Protestant movement hasn't helped, either. Very hard for the Southern Baptists to maintain participation when GenX, Millennial, and Zoomer cohorts no longer want to live in these heavily religious communities. They move to areas that don't have these highly active and Christian-dense neighborhoods. They fall out of the hyper-religious social circles. And they lose touch with the media and culture that ultimately drive these religious groups insane.
Meanwhile, the low housing prices and the increasingly finance and tech focused economic sectors are bringing in large numbers of religiously rivalrous migrant populations. The most common new religious constructions in the US are Mosques thanks to a large influx of Arab, Persian, and East African migrants. And because migrant populations and religious builders love cheap land, they're often showing up in and around declining Christian communities.
If you're out living in LA or Tampa or Houston and you're wondering why folks in Peoria, Indiana or Chattanooga, Tennessee or Tulsa, Oklahoma are losing their fucking minds over the super-scary illegal immigrant / Radical Islamic invasion, this is a big reason why. Their kids are all leaving for the coasts while lots of unseasonably tan people are showing up to take their place.
That... actually makes a lot of sense. Couldn't figure out why America, the land of immigrants, was so hostile to new people but now I can see why a poor old conservative feeling abandoned and surrounded by confusing things might think Trump actually makes sense.
Any advanced society should be able to acknowledge that population growth must not outpace the available resources. Or else there will be Bad Times For All
Yeah, having kids probably reduced my household resource consumption, compared to the dual income no kid lifestyle that my wife and I had before kids.
Population growth is so far disconnected from resource consumption, because people's resource consumption does not resemble a bell curve. A private jet produces more CO2 in an hour (about 2 tonnes) than the average Indian produces in a year (about 1.9 tonnes).
The poor people having children aren't destroying the planet. Rich people, childless or not, are. (And yes, I acknowledge that I fall under the "rich" category here.)
Something that no one has discussed in this highly enlightened conversation here is the issue of consent. A person cannot consent to being born. Full stop. I don't know of a way around that besides ignoring it.
But they also can't request it. What do you do for the people who don't exist yet that desire existence?
I should note that I have gone around the local NICU and requested all the children present to indicate a desire to stop existing. None of them agreed. Many of them were struggling mightily to continue to exist. A few even yelled at me for asking the question. I'll admit its a small sample size, but hard to argue with a 100% existence endorsement.
That's just how evolution works- something that already exists and is driven to stay alive is more likely to pass on its genetics than something that is not driven to stay alive. This fact has nothing to do with the philosophy of consenting to exist in the first place.
Edit: missed your first question. Something that does not exist cannot desire.
If we are to assume that every non-existent person desires to exist, and that we have the obligation to not block this, then we should be having children whenever possible as to not block anyone.
Let's visualize this. If I decide to wait for another partner and a certain age, the humans that I could create with my current sexual partner in these years are screaming to be born and I'm ignoring them. I'm not letting Laura or Ignacio be born, and over them I'm preferring Óscar who will be born in 2028 of a different father. Am I doing something morally incorrect at negating Laura's and Ignacio's right to be? If so, as I said, you agree we have the obligation of having children whenever possible and we better start now you and me and everyone else reading. If not, if we don't have this obligation, then there's no problem if I skip Laura this year, Ignacio the next and Óscar and others later. Unless you want to save this by saying some people deserve to come into existence more than others, but I already say I won't agree with that.
Other people would argue in a different way. There are people who would say that even if we create good by bringing people that do consent retrospectively, we also harm forcing life into people that wouldn't and don't want life. And even if the proportion is absurd, not harming is always the priority over giving pleasure. This is the idea behind negative utilitarianism and other ethical paradigms. This also has been studied by philosopher David Benatar who reframed it, and now that's called "Benatar asymmetry" (but the question is older than him).
I hope my English does not betray my explanation...
The problem I have with your argument is that it could easily be used to justify rape. A person who is incapable of giving consent is also incapable of requesting things, so does that make it okay to just assume consent?
Technically, sure. You are free to go live in the woods, off grid, somewhere. Or you are free to violate this particular social contract and deal with the consequences.
You can volunteer yo not pay taxes. Move to some place without and renounce your citizenship. If I recall correctly Saudi Arabia doesn't have a great deal of personal taxes.
I mean I know there's no way to obtain that consent, but I did let my parents know that they should have just gotten the abortion since the condom ripped.
I wasn't planned, and I shouldn't have been born into that family. None of them were ready or cared to be ready or even cared to be with each other as they almost immediately split after my birth.
One thing I'll literally NEVER understand are the women on dating sites with literal newborns... What the actual fuck?
I was a mild antinatalist for a while. Personally wanted kids, but felt the world was too broken to pass to a new generation that didn't ask for it.
And then -- I know this sounds dumb, but whatever -- I played Horizon: Zero Dawn.
Parenthood in a time of armageddon is a central theme, and it's not subtle about it. Every story element is named in a way that alludes to either parenthood or annihilation. The overarching plot describes the moral challenges of...
spoiler
...planning a next generation of humans to rise from the ashes, thousands of years after the previous generation went extinct. They died to an AI catastrophe, but it works just as well as an allegory for climate change.
Is it ethical to even subject a new generation to this, knowing what we know about how we fucked things up? If we're gonna try, do we have a duty to put in a kill switch in case things go off the rails again?
Obviously, the game sides firmly with the new humans, but it doesn't dismiss these questions out-of-hand, and it's okay with ambiguity and hypocrisy even on the part of Project Zero Dawn's chief architect.
It's only encouraged because if people stop having children, it breaks the system, an utterly shit system which apparently can't be fixed fast enough if people stop having children so we better go full speed ahead on a the most moronically large scale sunk cost calamity that is going to hit us like a brick wall along with all the other things piling up.
if people stop having children, it breaks the system
The overriding fear I've seen is that not enough white children are being born. And as the definition and context of whiteness shifts, this inspires varying degrees of alarm and hatred. A big part of the current Israel/Palestine conflict stems from the demographically older and more infertile Israelis believing they need to cap the younger and more virile Palestinian population by any means necessary (including the current genocide).
So it isn't even that "people stop having children", but the "right" people not having the "correct" kind of children.
we better go full speed ahead on a the most moronically large scale sunk cost calamity that is going to hit us like a brick wall
Sort of the dirty secret about climate change is that its got nothing to do with population size. Enormous amounts of natural resources and carbon emissions are being produced by vanishingly small portions of the population. The whole AI project has been a fossil fuel hog. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan consumed phenomenal volumes of material for the benefit of an infinitesimal sliver of the planet's residents. Reliance on disposable plastics and love of enormous cars has nothing to do with the number of children we've been having.
Anti-natalism is completely divorced from ecological sustainability. In many ways, it is rooted in this delusion that we're all living in these remote rural settings with an infinite frontier to exploit forever. And that mentality emerges most forcefully in places that don't have these dense urban populations.
I love how your second quote literally and purposely leaves off the last part so you can fuel your argument better. Some people don't need to be misinformed, they do it to themselves!
Overpopulation is not "anti-natalism", overpopulation is literally a known and measured problem of biological populations, but some people like to make-believe that it doesn't apply to humans. Cue "but population really is falling (except not really because we keep bringing immigration from places with lower quality of life and then complain when ours continues to be lowered)" when it itself is an indication that we are reaching the limits and yet are still trying to push past them.
As an aside, lol at new labels like "anti-natalism" showing up that stereotype arguments launched against them, it reminds me of how the GQP has adopted their "woke"-ness label just because it gave them a term to band things that had existed for ages under. I'm sure "antinatalism" will serve as well - not blaming you for it, just realized the term was being paraded around and that it will work out just about as well as "woke".
Yes, I'm sure the consequences would be horrible if we stopped, but that's the thing, being already in a shit load of trouble if you pull out is sort of a prerequisite of sunk cost fallacies.
Yes, common objections are that the economy could crash or that humanity could go extinct. I don't think these are good objections, and I have different reasons. It seems like a bad "an end justifies the means" way of thinking sometimes.
Honestly, the economic crash one is weird. The logic is that we must sacrifice our present and immediate future (that happens to be millions of lives) so that other lives are better (supposedly). Huh? It reminds me of the argument I heard against prohibiting animals in circuses. They argue that the animals that were in the circuses at the time would be slaughtered or abandoned, so their logic was allowing more and more years of animals suffering inside the circuses. What? Yes, the change definitely hurt, but it was possible both to fight against their slaughter and abandonment, and to get rid of that abuse forever. If we decrease in population, of course it will be difficult, but we can find ways to face the difficulties while we get into a better system. We cannot preserve capitalism just because we are afraid of hard times, when capitalism itself is hurting us.
The extinction one is different. We won't get to that point, but even if we did, it would be a free decision of humanity that is hurting no one else. That's the intuition they probably have: that those humans would be hurting the ones that do not exist yet, but I already commented about that reasoning. I don't think there's harm against the non-existant. Our end is possibly inevitable because the habitable Universe seems to have an end. If we decide to fight it, that's okay as long as we do it ethically. But if we collectively decide to end it all, I respect it as long as it's done ethically too. Anyway, as I said, this is mere imagination as I do not see humanity (in the big numbers we now are) never ever choosing this path together. We will be here for some time.
I consider myself staunchly antinatalist. Almost nobody I see in the world day-to-day should have children. Hell, working in retail I've come to understand how few people deserve life in general. And then those shitty people have shitty kids.
But I feel like I love as deeply as I hate. When I do meet actually decent people, it makes me feel very happy. It's just not often enough.
I'm not a fan of utalitarianism myelf, so this might be wrong;
this sounds like utalitarianism - as the action you did cause other suffering.
then in your moral philosophy, are all actions that cause suffering (and joy, and all other feelings a human can experience) morally wrong?
Is then not dating, f.ex Morally wrong?
Or is it the impossibility of consent?
Yes, a child is unable to consent to being born. Just as we are all unable to consent to the world being created, or nature's whims.
I cannot consent to a state on the other side of the world making policies, but I can still react and do things about it.
There's also antinatalism from a deontological perspective.
But, from the negative utilitarianists I've known and seen, I've found an intense debate about the animal reproduction question. Some say antinatalism should include non-human animals and any other sentient being; some say it's a human-only matter. I do not have an opinion.
this comment section is a hell of a ride, but i'll just state what seems to be a pretty significant thing that everyone just merrily sails past:
Y'all remember that saying of "it takes a village to raise a child"? That's why modern parenting sucks, we don't tend to have villages to help raise our children anymore.
We're not meant to raise kids with maybe at best our partner and some assistance from their grandparents and kindergarden/school, we're meant to share that load and responsibility among like at least a dozen people and kids are meant to constantly have access to other kids to play with and collectively learn what boundaries are.
Thank you. I've been subscribed to this sub for months and didn't know a damn thing just that it consistently produced amusing content. Please proceed you glorious bastards.
Must be interesting to be quite literally a thought terminating cliché, the idea keeps itself from perpetuity, but they'll be tilting at windmills for the rest of their lives
Stupid people have the most kids, that's how you know the world is full of idiots.
Ocassionaly though you meet a really nice humble person that will make you think positive towards people again atleast for a while... Even better if you carry their torch and continue with those good vibes towards others. Gives you that touch of there's genuinely good people still out there. Its refreshing.
It's funny to think that modern humans have been around for tens of thousands of years but we're only ~80 years of infertility away from global extinction.
80 years of total infertility across billions of people. Even 99.9% infertility would still leave millions of people. Extinction isn't coming anytime soon.
I mean.. with all the negativity in this thread, every single person here is consenting to be alive every single day. While there are a number who choose an early exit, the vast vast statistical majority overwhelmingly consent to live another day every day. With such stats I feel like it's fine to assume the default status is consent in this context.
Plus, speaking of morals, we're just dumb little apes. You give us too much credit if you think we can fight the greatest biological urge of all life over something we've completely invented in our minds : morals, and the morals of the unborn is like double hypothetical.
Death is scary, not wanting to die is not the same as wanting to live. I would've rather not been born during about 1/3 of my life, it's only now that I'm finding any substantial (though inconsistent) enjoyment from life.
"by waking up today, you consent to continue existing, and acknowledge the suffering it brings. Do you wish to continue?”
[yes] [yes]
no the fuck I do not. If I had a magicall button that would let me stop existing without the risk of damaging my neck and spending the rest of my life incapacitated but alive, and it didn't cause trauma to the people around me, I would have pressed it fucking years ago.
vast statistical majority overwhelmingly consent to live
The child can still consider taking the one-way exit as soon as it is able to make such considerations and thereby gets a choice.
You could ask in a similar manner:
Wouldn't it be immoral to disallow this decision making process by leaving the child no choice by not having it?
Asking for consent of an unborn is paradoxial and inherently impossible. It's almost like asking a plant whether it consents into being planted and eaten afterwards. It has no agency. Is it immoral though to plant it and eat it anyway?
Having a child is similar. Get it, let it grow and develop its agency. Then it can decide for itself.
So the answer boils down to kill yourself when you turn 18 bud? That seems like incredibly callous and unnecessary pain for all involved.
Consent 101: If you’re unsure about whether or not someone would consent, the answer is no. And since we can’t ask the unborn, people who don’t want kids assume the answer is no.
Death is far scarier than having never been born. I went through sooooo much torment thinking about death and if I should make today the day. I have PTSD from years of that. This is not a fair exit.
Solar sands did a really interesting video on this topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O5S2Y4FhJ0
I can totally see the appeal of considering whether the kids you have will be happy and definitely more people should do that. But at its most extreme level of no-one having kids ever I think the argument breaks since no-one would feel good about going extinct, knowing that there will never be the happiness you experience in your own life in the lives of others in the future is pretty grim.
But it's interesting to talk about this topic and I'm curious what real people's responses are to it.
I don't care about the species, I care about the people. If someone doesn't want to reproduce, it's better for both them and the species that they don't. People only reproducing when they personally get something out of it will eventually make future generations enjoy it more. Forcing it just promotes suffering, perpetuating the cycle of unhappy parents in the long run.
This whole idea of caring about furthering our "species" is eugenics anyways. My genes make me want to be a parent, but I understand that the genes themselves don't matter for shit. I'm planning to have kids because I will enjoy raising them and helping them live full lives. If someone doesn't share this desire, I'm not gonna force my preference onto them.
Freedom and treating humans with dignity does that very job of eugenics better than the eugenics notion of pressuring people to be parents. There's no Darwinian excuse for being shitty to other people. Just be good.
Valuing children only for the monetary value they will contribute is a very good way of producing unhappy children which in my view is pretty immoral. It's also pretty close to viewing humans as capital and that's problematic in it's own right