Came across this community in my feed, and after browsing a bit I'm intrigued.
As an "outsider", I would have assumed this place would be about enjoying a childfree lifestyle, but it seems to be more than that.
For example, I see lots of posts and comments that seem to allude to extinctionism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_Movement
That caught me off guard since I figured this place would be more like "look at all this free time and money and freedom I have to enjoy my life to the fullest in any way I want". Now I'm curious.
It seems like there's a whole spectrum of ideas that are getting lumped into the same bucket. What's your take? What brought you here?
As I understand it, being childfree simply means not having and not wanting children. There doesn’t need to be a philosophical reason for that; reasons such as finding children annoying can be enough. Antinatalists, however, are philosophically opposed to procreation. They believe that suffering is an overwhelming part of life (stemming from disease, financial status, bereavement, and many others), and they argue it would be better if someone were never exposed to it in the first place. Existing beings, though, learn to deal with it.
Because antinatalism is a philosophy and childfree is a life choice, you will see people across the entire spectrum.
Personally, I started out as childfree and later became an antinatalist. I don't like how noisy children are. I can spend some time with children, but after a certain threshold, I get really tired and annoyed. Also, my depression and anxiety play a large part in my decision not to bring children into the world. I don't want them to go through all this bullshit (and this is where antinatalism comes in).
If I ever "change my mind" like countless people suggest, I’ll just adopt.
This is interesting, because my initial (possibly naive) reaction to learning about antinatalism was that it sounded like a projection of depression. It sounds like the core thesis is "life is not worth the suffering and therefore shouldn't be forced onto anyone", and it seems like depression is a prerequisite to holding that particular view.
That is not an unfair assumption to make. It is possible that people with depression have a disposition towards pessimism, nihilism, and antinatalism; however, I would like to know how that invalidates the position. Note that this philosophy has been exposed to people without depression as well, and so far, it has been incredibly hard to refute without assuming life, humanity, or sentience as positive things.
Philosophical pessimism, particularly Schopenhauerian thought, asserts that suffering is the default state of life, and happiness is merely a temporary alleviation of it. This makes sense when viewed through an evolutionary lens. Suffering is what drives us to avoid death, while pleasure serves as reinforcement that the death-defying action is favorable to our continued existence.
Consider a primitive person being hunted by a predator. That person experiences suffering, which prompts them to escape. They outrun the predator and avoid death. Then they experience happiness, which acts as reinforcement to continue the escape behavior. This is why we experience pain more intensely than pleasure. If it were not so, the primitive person would have died and we would have never been here. This principle applies to hunger, loneliness, insomnia, and similar biological drives.
Some propose the argument that life would be worth it once suffering is solved. Under the reasoning I presented above, I do not see how this could be "solved". How will you solve death economically? How will you remove or solve bereavement? How will you permanently solve disease?
Let us say you selectively keep pumping dopamine and serotonin, and selectively inhibit their reuptake whilst constantly monitoring pleasure and pain. Will this not be detrimental to your survival? What if you run into scenarios where it is necessary for you to "escape"?
As I see it, suffering is necessary for survival; it needs to be the default state, and it is experienced more intensely than pleasure. We, as already existing beings, need suffering, but it need not be imposed on the non-existent.
(Sorry if I went into a tangent, lol!)
I don't personally believe that depression is necessary to see things that way. Life is objectively bad for many people.
My question is there a philosiphy around this concept of : "Life is objectively bad for many people. And because I dont want more people to suffer I wont have kids. BUT if life becomes permanently better for all humans who are suffering then Ill probably adopt some kids. (But seeing as how humanity has had a consistent track record of making things worse for each other?....Uhhh we will have to see about how that turns out. I aint hopeful though , let it be known)"
Is there a philosophy for this or is it just nihilist?
That's not nihilism, nihilism is a specific philosophy that is often misunderstood. Here's the three main branches, you could say, of nihilist philosophy:
Nihilism: Life has no meaning, so you must find your own.
Existentialism: Life has no meaning, only your actions/choices do.
Absurdism: Life has no meaning, let's have some fun while we're here.
I guess absurdism is the only thing thatt matters for most humans nowadays, in my opinion that is. Humans are not massive so we cant make massive changes to the Earth individually. All of us are tiny beings in comparisom to this planet and most of us live in deeply individualistic societies so ccollectivism and collective action are disappointingly rare nowadays. I dont see that changing any time soon sadly.
SO you might as well have as much peaceful dfun as you can with other people while the world burns is how I see it 🤷🏿♂️
I think your previous post kinda hints at antinatalism: suffering is inherent to life, and so to limit suffering one must not seek to reproduce
suffering is inherent but we can decrease its occurrence and its severity to the point that its an obscurity to mostt people is what I feel.
THEN and only then will I be okay with people reproducing so rampantly
I actually feel that humanity has had the potential to make a world or will one day actually realize a world where the innate experience of practically all humans is to have ignorable amounts of suffering. Like so little suffering that the word 'suffer' would become foreign to most humans' vocabularies.
And I feel that in a world like that? It would be perfectly OK for each person to have as many children as they see fit. I doubt that this opinion makes me antinatalist. Does it?
Sadly, Humanity isnt even anywhere close to that and we havent gotten close to that ever. Which is why I would strongly recommend against anyone ever producing a child seeing as how the innate experience for most is to suffer a sad , individualistic life plagued with dystopian monotony and unequal exchange.
I don't see this as nihilism. Additionally, I don't see why adoption needs to be contingent on life becoming permanently better for all humans. If you want kids, and are able to provide an adopted child with a better life, I see that as a win-win. Under antinatalism, if you do not have any children already, the choice of adoption just reduces to the childfree case (e.g. do you find them annoying?). Therefore, your thought seems pretty much to line up with antinatalism.
Well I myself am sufferring and Ive comme to the realization. that most of my suffering is due to capitalism .
So until I see a permanent destruction of capitaliism and a permanent transition of humanity towards societies that are humanistic or/and collectivistic? I wont be caring for any kids throigh adoption because I currently dont have the time or money (or honestly even the sanity,) to be anywheree near a kid.
I already have a permanent vasectommy that my doctor has informed me probably wonnt be reversible so I cant produce children anymore through normal means.
But most importantly even if I could have children , I would opt for me and my future partner (if I ever meet them) for us to adopt rather than to try IVF or to try a vasectomy reversal. if we want kids cause why in the fuck are we STILL allowing so so many minors , who are deserving of a parennts love, to just wallow and freeze to death in the streets? Why should I make my own kid when 'my own kid' is most likely out there in the streets somewhere?
Correction: humanity doesn’t have consistent track record of making things worse for each other, it’s all on civilaztions that have ever adopted farming. There are still some fragments of communities living as hunter gatherers that base their life together on cooperation and caring.
i think my problem is based on what Ive seen I think that most modern societies are NOT based on cooperation and caring. I will commend peoples those who still live in hunter gatherer societies that are based on cooperation , care and community
....But most imperialistic and even imperialized nations I have read about seem to not see and treat these three things with as much inportance in all their planning as they oughta.
Basically fuck capitalism and those who uphold and defend its cold, individualistic , and genocidal principles.
Does that invalidate the position?