antinatalism

[Someone here]

I believe it is a very valid philosophical stand but it will never be the norm. I've had ideas about reproduction and not bringing new lives into this world for almost 3 years now,and I was almost always ridiculed for that by my friends and family. I didn't know back then that philosophers old and new have spoken along the same lines. Now having read the works of Schopenhauer,Cioran and Benatar I'm more than convinced that I am right,but I also do not want to impose this view on anyone else. If someone wants to bring a child into this bleak and mostly hopeless world,they should do it and let their most prized creation suffer. Even Jesus could not avoid the excruciating misery of this world so a mere mortal will most certainly face very serious hardships here.

I also do not believe that it is right for parents to bring an entity to life to bear the weight of their dreams and expectations.The three main reasons that people given in justification or necessity of reproduction are;

 1 .It is the norm

2 .The child will further the family lineage

3.The child will support the parents when they are old.

All three according to me are thoroughly ignorant and very selfish. If they're doing it because it is the norm, they're sheep, with no brains or reasoning of their own.. if they're doing it to further the family lineage, then they're narcissists..and if they're doing it so that the child may support them when they get old,then they're highly self-centered.

What are your thoughts on antinatalism ? Is it ethical to bring a human being into this life without his/her permission to experience the inevitable suffering that is baked into the fabric of our existence?

[Someone here]

3 minutes ago, Something Funny said:

@Someone here I am greatful for being born to experience this beautiful universe. Surely glad that my parents didn't read Schopenhauer lmao.

But life surely contains a shit ton of suffering and misery that anyone can potentially experience and endure .  Isn't suffering inevitable and inherentl part of life?   It's basically unavoidable. Even if you are rich and iving a kick ass life ..someday for some reason you MUST suffer. Because what goes up must come down .we live in a world of duality. Pleasure and pain.  Life can get very gross sometimes.  My primary question here is an ethical one . Is it moral to bring a human being into this world without taking their permission to experience all sorts of suffering in this world (since nobody chose to be born )?

[Someone here]

25 minutes ago, Something Funny said:

Idk, sometimes I enjoy suffering as well. Can it even still be considered suffering if you enjoy it? More like discomfort.

Also, at least in my life, the joy and epicness of it is worth whatever moments of suffering I get here and there.

What "moral" means?

Is it moral to not bring a human being into this world, preventing him from potentially having an amazing experience?

How do you even know that it was you who decided to have a child and not a child who decided to have you?

There are people who are unable to have children, there are people who have 10 children, there are people who can have a kid but don't want to.

Who are you to decide what's right or wrong, what's moral or immoral. Don't pretend to be wiser than the universe which decided to create the world exactly the way it is.  If there is suffering it's there for a reason. If there are 9 billion people on this planet, they are here for a reason. Just because you are not wise enough to understand why something exists doesn't mean that it's wrong for it to exist.

Maybe it’s just me but I resent my parents for creating me. Life will inevitably contain some pain, and for many an unbearable amount, from which the only escape is death. Suicide can be very difficult: a failed attempt can cause more suffering, and can cause it for those around the person doing it. No sane person would say we should subject an innocent being to undeserved suffering without consent . it’s unjust by societal standards, why should doing this to someone not yet alive be different? Since there is no possible way to get the consent of a being not yet alive, antinatalism seems like the only logical position.

[Someone here]

3 minutes ago, Something Funny said:

@Someone here I am sorry that you feel that way. It's really a shame.

But antinatalism stuff is dumb. It basically hinges on a bunch of bullshit assumptions:

- Life is mostly not worth living because it's mostly suffering

- Suffering is bad

- Suffering can be deserved or undeserved

- Being risk averse is better than being prone to risk

- Suffering is real and not subjective

- Reality is real

- Children and parents are real

- Concept of birth is real

- People are not choosing who they are born to, in what life, in what times, and in what circumstances

- Etc.

 

And I'm ready to discuss all of these assumptions. But it's gonna take a lot of time and effort .

Let's just start with suffering.  Suffering is a fact . Everyone suffers in this life .there is no escaping it. 

Suffering is part of life. Just like birth, growth, and death, suffering is an unavoidable part of life.

One way or another, almost everyone suffers from something throughout one's life.

The degree of suffering differs depending on the cause of our suffering; It could be a swing of mood from a good one to a less desirable one..or it could be a degradation of our health.. it could be the demise of our loved ones. Etc 

As long as we age, get sick, and will die eventually, and as long as we have loved ones, we will suffer someday when our body's conditions deteriorated or when we lost our loved ones.

Buddha became enlightened when he finally understood the source of suffering of man kind. Even if we have happiness, it only means that we would suffer when our mood swings from the happy one to a less happy one. That's why Buddha advocated a simplistic life that helps us to maintain a smooth and calm mood. That's also why Buddhist monks and nuns don't get marrie.. no offspring simply means less suffering or discontinuation of suffering.

[Someone here]

@Something Funny cheers 

[Someone here]

7 hours ago, JoeVolcano said:

I've felt the same way about having children. I've even heard Osho say the same thing in some video.

The theoretical human potential is awesome, but in practice it will never be very different from what it is now and always has been. If life weren't a dream, I'd probably be an antinatalist.

Except that I wouldn't impose it on anyone else because I don't think that's my business. I don't see it as an ethical thing so much as a personal preference. Plenty of people apparently want to be alive, so who am I to tell them they're wrong.

But yeah even the thought of having to do all this again is just depressing, until I realize it's just another thought.

Cheers

the majority of people are slaves to adhering to social norms and would never think to question themselves on such matters. Are far as they are concerned all life is precious regardless of the misery incurred. More people are becoming childless for a variety of reasons, however humanity is far more likely to become extinct through more violent means rather than logic.

 

[Arcangelo]

Kids are way too fucking expensive man...

+Even if I had million$, there's no guarantee that he/she will be raised in a non dysfunctional/separated family.

Couple of chimps, chimps like to fuck, they give birth to more dysfunctional chimps.

F that s

[Someone here]

Just now, Arcangelo said:

Kids are way too fucking expensive man...

+Even if I had million$, there's no guarantee that he/she will be raised in a non dysfunctional/separated family.

Couple of chimps, chimps like to fuck, they give birth to more dysfunctional chimps.

F that s

?

[Arcangelo]

^Hehe!

I (really really) mean it though.

 

[Someone here]

5 minutes ago, Arcangelo said:

^Hehe!

I (really really) mean it though.

 

Yeah yeah i agree with you 

Antinatalism is the way, the truth, and the light. Nobody chose to be born. We were all rudely and selfishly forced into this horrible world to have to endure this horrible thing called life. Our parents did not have us for our benefit, but theirs. And it is for the worse. Procreation is the supreme act of evil. Life is horrible and it would have been better never to have existed.

[BlueOak]

You perhaps have heard of elfisim which focuses on all living things. The creator of that was recently reallowed on youtube after a long ban. I see it as collective antinatalism but that assumes that the human perspective is paramount over other beings which is a huge leap of ego in my eyes. 

Antinatalism for me is based on value judgments only, rather than seeing something as a part of a whole or a link in a chain. In pure value terms, I agree a dozen people's happiness cannot make up for one person having cancer. Efilists would argue a billion small creatures killing each other daily is worth no moment of happiness.

Suffering isn't without its place. Suffering gives a depth to life that you can't have without it. You cannot really appreciate the depth of something without its contrast. A lot of the time you can't have growth without suffering, we can't meet challenges and better life in broad terms, without people suffering in some form. 

Assuming of course people are trying to improve life for others, which certainly isn't always the case, many are going through the motions and some are actively making it worse. There is a good argument to be had that humanity isn't moving forward in a harmonious or balanced approach, what that means is, its actively making the biosphere and life worse for those here. The ongoing environmental changes are all i'd really need cite for this, because that's the greatest collective perspective I can draw evidence from. For animals of course a vast majority wouldn't have anything like this moralist way of looking at life, and I would say imposing it over them is flawed.

I also agree many parents' reasons for having kids is messed up, and part of the reason society is messed up. It's often only about them, and a value judgment based on the parent's life, or worse, expectations of them. If they instead thought, 1) I want to have a kid to give it the best life I can for him/her, as some do, then that kids life is going to be vastly improved, THEN did the personal value judgment 2) I'll only do this when its right for me, and no amount of expectation will make me have a child. 3) If they went one step further and said how can my child be a contributing part of the community, from a young age, that would be a step up too, but you get the idea. We could use spiral dynamics here, to the level of consciousness of the parents

Overall I came to learn from my limited viewing of the ideology of antinatalists and efilists, they can be (or appear) outwardly compassionate people, because they are considering the suffering of others above their own. They are limited to just value judgments which is a capitalist way of looking at the world, and are from my understanding often pure atheists, because if you do consider any form of intelligent or spiritual design to the biosphere we live in, with any greater purpose, that too needs to be put aside to hold these ideologies.

Edited July 12, 2022 by BlueOak
Spelling of Efilist, succinct to elfist which also exist.

[ZenAlex]

The reality is it's ethical enough to bring a child into a reality if you are prepared for it. There will be suffering.

But every life that was ever worth living involved suffering and pain. 

[Yarco]

I understand the sentiment of "I didn't consent to being born", it's just a bit too emo for me. Same as dudes whining about being circumcised for their entire life. Shit happens, the world sucks, your parents probably did the best they could but they're flawed beings like everyone.

Personally I see having kids as kind of like a karmic price for being born myself. I'm grateful for being born, and I feel I owe it to the universe to at least replace myself and give someone else that experience and provide them with a good childhood. Especially being in a 1st world country during a period of technological advancement, peace, and prosperity. Even being a kid to a single mom on welfare in America in 2022 is better than most kids in history have had it.

I also think about the movie Ideocracy where at some point only dumb people reproduce and will outbreed all the smart people. So a bit of it is ego, thinking my genetics and intelligence are above-average and worth passing on to out-compete someone else.

In the future I could actually see something like in HG Well's The Time Machine where humanity splits off into the Eloi and Morlocks happening. Especially if all the intelligent people are putting off having kids into their late 30s and 40s, if they have them at all.

That being said, having a kid is hard as fuck and I only have 10 months experience doing it so far haha. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to handle having a second one. If you feel indifferent, neutral, or are just gonna do it because your partner really wants a kid... I would advise not having a kid. It's like 10x harder than a puppy, puppies aren't constantly trying to kill themselves every second and don't take several years to become semi-autonomous.

[Blackhawk]

I'm for antinatalism.

[Bobby_2021]

"Other" beings don't exist. And suffering can only be experienced by you. You cannot reduce their sufferings by doing anything 

It makes no difference whether you reproduce or not. Both are equally neutral.

Population growth are almost always trends of survival concerns rather than people simply opting to not have children out of will.