Asklemmy

It's a very complex issue.

On one have. Having children or not is a deep freedom that feels wrong to constraint, one way or the other. I don't think messing around with "how many lids" should anyone have is good.

But on the other hand, I reason that resources are not limitless, and human footprint on the environment will be bigger the more humans there are. So O do think that the world would be a nicer place if there was less humans around. Less pollution, less worrying about ending up resources, more available land for each human, less over-crowdled everything.

But I won't be the one saying anyone to control their biological functions like that. At most I just wish more people realized of this and would voluntarily try to find a stable number of humans on earth that would be an order of magnitude less than we have now.

So yeah, in general I don't agree with anti-natalism as presented.

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?

My relationship with antinatalism is very complicated.

First off, I personally will not be procreating, for multiple reasons.

Chief among those is the fact that I live in an ever worsening capitalist, patriarchal, xenophobic hellscape; even socialist countries are a long long way away from anything resembling communism, still require a lot of labor from their citizens in exchange for basic necessities (with good reasons), and patriarchy very much persists there. I have hope that we as a species can overcome this eventually, just as we mostly overcame slavery and achieved some semblance of emancipation for many oppressed minorities.

Another, more permanent reason: despite my relative privileges, my own experience of life has been very mixed, and I perceive there to be more suffering than happiness. Suffering is just a way for our body to push our brain to do something the body needs to survive; human beings have a lot of needs to be met, and as long as there are at least a couple that are not you will suffer (not accounting for things like drugs or other extreme dopamine hits which come with their own set of issues). Another big issue is how our bodies normalize the level of suffering to their environment; this is good because it allows us to get by with very little without going insane, but on the flipside even if you have all the basic needs met, the body is always demanding more via suffering. You can observe this by looking at rich people: even though their needs are met with seeming abundance, they crave to experience more and different pleasures, and suffer in the process of trying to achieve them. While frivolous, I think the suffering they experience is still real and similar to that of our own. I don't feel any compassion for them (after all, for most of them their wealth was stolen from less fortunate), but it's a good example.

As such, I personally don't want to bring a new being into this world, mostly to suffer their way through life.

However, I also know for sure that different people experience life differently. I know that people with much worse material conditions than mine perceive themselves (and thus their life) to be overall happy, despite there being plenty of suffering too. I don't know whether it's a genetic or learnt trait of their psychology; in any case, I think those people are more likely to produce offspring who experience a happy life, and wish them the best in doing so. My hope is that they bring up their kids in the right way - both so that they are happy, and also able to eventually overcome all the issues in the third paragraph.

I'm an amoralist antinatalist. I think having children is fucked up on many levels, but I wouldn't try to argue it's inherently immoral

I think the future is bleak and procreation at this point is selfish. I'm not one to prescribe what other people can do, but even if I still could I would never have a child.

Hmmm.. I believe in not having babies but for different reasons than that. I personally don't see any reason to have them, especially because many seem to get them because they get pressured into it or are expected to have them or even as a safety net when they get old?

I think that many regret having kids but don't want to admit it. Kind of like buyers remorse

Also, making decisions in what others should do, with such fundamental rights is not something I would support.

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.

One word: bullshit. One name: Siddhartha Gauttama. The guy nailed it about "inevitability" of suffering

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.

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.

Hell yeah Linnahall, it's a cool place been there a few times myself

I get it.

edit:

Anti-natalists believe that suffering will always be there and no one should be born EVER.

Oh well idk. I think if I had been born in the Netherlands I might be more inclined to have kids, seems nice over there.

I see the whole thing as what happens when people fail to move beyond teenage angst. Having children or not is a a very big, very personal choice. And I fully respect someone who chooses not to, whether their reasons are personal, economic, religious or whatever. You do you. Turning that outward to the argument that humans are horrible, life is suffering and no one should ever have children is taking that sort of thing to the point of hypocritical religious zealotry. No, you didn't get to consent to being born. Until you were born, you didn't have the capacity. But, once you are an adult you have your full faculties and can make choices for yourself. If you really feel that existence is that horrible, there's a solution for that at your nearest tall bridge. Except, these folks never actually follow through. They want the attention that suicide brings, without that whole dying bit.

So ya, I fully understand that someone may choose not to have children. There are many valid reasons for making that choice. The whole argument that life is so terrible that we should work to off ourselves as a species, isn't valid. It's a cry for attention and the folks feeling that way should seek professional help.

You can look at this through the buddhist worldview:

After you die, you are going to be reborn in the world that you helped create. This could be a smile on another person's face or a project you helped realize. Especially, also children are a large part of what you helped create, so in a certain sense, a part of you is going to be reborn into them.

Then, the question is, if you could be born again in the year 2030, would you choose to? Would you think such a life is worthwhile?

Answering such a question might give you a hint of what your children would want, if they could be asked.

Sometimes it's due to trauma, fear and ideological confusion, which is valid, sometimes it's just a way for people to be even more selfish, nihilistic and hedonistic without the optics associated with them. It also feels like the equivalent of angry/sad MGTOW but for life and it's biological imperative, not just women. To each their own. 🤷

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

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.

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?