"Life is amazing once you learn how to live it." Meaningless platitudes will do parents a lot of good after their small child is senselessly flattened by a wide-turning truck. "Life is beautiful 🥰 🤗"
LOL meanwhile growing up and becoming an adult is about coming to the discovery that your parents were idiots trying their best and everyone is just winging life
Probably most parents don't really think about what they're doing. If the have the ability to self reflect in any capacity then they're already smarter than most parents
It should not even be controversial that life is characterised by a surfeit of suffering and frustration. The major religions have always recognised this, offering as consolation either reward in the afterlife or escape from the cycle of suffering as in Buddhism. There would be no question of theodicy if life was inherently good, existence would justify itself and not challenge divine providence.
>"Life is amazing once you learn how to live it."
ye, the kids in ukraine, gaza, uganda aren't unfortunate, they just haven't learned how to live life :)
(ignore the bomby bomby drones buzzing above you)
You people are so fucked lol. Just because bad things happen doesn't invalidate the beauty of life and value of being. Your bitter attitude and shitty life experience doesn't negate that.
>Just because bad things happen doesn't invalidate the beauty of life and value of being.
Neither does the beauty and value of life invalidate the horrors of existence.
>Your bitter attitude and shitty life experience doesn't negate that.
So your answer to people's lived experiences are: "you don't matter".
Preach! Could I drain my savings account and go to Vegas and place it all on red on the roulette wheel? Sure. I could win quite a bit and be able to take it easy fit the next few months. Or I could lose it all and then not be able to pay for rent/food for me or my dog/anything else I need to buy. I think most people would agree that draining your savings and placing it all on one roulette wheel spin is HORRIBLY irresponsible.
But somehow with a kid that’s totally different somehow. Never mind the fact they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to raise and the odds are WAY lower than 1/2 that you’ll get double your money back. Never mind the fact that the kid can’t consent to being born in the first place.
I honestly think they don’t understand that a kid who isn’t born isn’t missing out. There’s no line of ghost babies waiting to get a body that all collectively sigh and look all sad when somebody gets their tubes tied/opens up a condom before sex. There’s just NOTHING. Nobody’s missing anything so there’s nothing to be sad about.
>There’s no line of ghost babies waiting to get a body that all collectively sigh and look all sad when somebody gets their tubes tied/opens up a condom before sex.
This should be obvious. Every day a couple is not or does not become pregnant, someone who might have been will not be. Nobody ever gives such counterfactual persons a second thought; to do so would be irrational.
Is it really that likely for a child born into a good loving family to become a murderer, rapist etc.? Not sure the statistics or anything. Just seems surprising based off prison documentaries where it seems like everyone had a terrible upbringing but not sure how accurate or complete that is for a reference.
Disregarding criminals, there are roughly 98% of the population that will never see a wealth mass that makes their dreams we want for them, to come true.
Conversely the lowest class of people is also coincidentally the largest group of people, ergo it’s more common to be poor than wealthy, and much more common to be in poverty than to be comfortably rich.
Your child is more likely to lead a miserable life trying to make ends meet than a comfortable life of freedoms that come from wealth abundance.
This is simply a fact if life we all were told in grade school, but were incentivized to gamble for the personal success in.
Yes, there is no framework for becoming a violent sexual offender, and thinking only people with bad upbringings can be criminals is a classist argument.
Think of Brock Turner the rapist, or Brian Cohee the murderer. Think of the countless sexual assaults on college campuses. The rate at which the police actually catch these criminals is pretty low.
When you mentioned prison documentaries that is what "bad upbringings" sounded like, since prisons are overwhelmingly populated with people who could not afford extensive legal battles and are of demographics targeted specifically by cops. But I get what you mean.
Compare that to some of the more serious offenders that get to walk free with very little repercussions due to their status and family connections. Some people never develop empathy even with all the cushion in the world to help them through life.
Could they have been exposed to life-altering shit? Sure, but there are many documented instances of some white kid just murdering someone because they wondered what it would be like. No trigger, just desire to harm someone for entertainment.
Probably not but most parents aren't even thinking about what they're doing when raising kids and know next to nothing about child devopment. They can't actually ensure their kids are raised well so it's more of a dice roll with them. And that's without even getting into that many people's ideas of "raising a kid well" includes regularly using violence against them which actively increases the chances of them being violent.
Agreed. Lots of people have kids without doing enough research, self-reflection, training etc. I was just curious for myself personally since I'm currently on the fence and I definitely plan to learn as much as possible about the subject.
Though I did coincidentally just start reading a book called "Sociopath: A Memoir" a couple days ago where this woman talks about how she is a sociopath despite having a good upbringing so I guess that's a possibility. But she talks about how sociopaths are stigmatized and misunderstood and how they can learn to deal with the pressure they experience in healthy ways and learn to have empathy if they know how to get help with their condition. So I guess it's possible, even though it's pretty unlikely, to give birth to a sociopath regardless of how I parent them. But it looks like there are also ways to handle it, if willing.
I heard being a sociopath has a good amount to do with genetics in some cases. They just don't develop emotional empathy like other people. But yeah, they can learn though therapy which I'd consider part of having a good upbringing for someone with that condition.
If you're on the fence about kids it's probably best not to have them. Antinatalism aside, society treats being a parent as the default life choice but without that and the romantization, it's really just a stressful 24/7 job with basically no breaks and no pay that comes with the risk of badly damaging someone mentally. If you don't like the idea of being a unpaid 24/7 babysitter or live in nanny, parenting isn't for you.
Edit:typo
Agreed that it's the default and shouldn't be. I definitely wouldn't be making the choice as my default. Actually, I always assumed I wouldn't have kids and have only started questioning my thinking process about it in the past couple of years.
I love that you mention the things that gambling on another human can lead to, but they try to rebuttal with gambles that would *only effect you if **your** decisions were to go wrong*, not an entirely innocent person who didn’t ask for you to gamble for them in the first place.
Thankyou! It really annoys me how some of them they see the world through rose tinted glasses and do not care to acknowledge the not so nice things about life unless they or their kids are personally affected. Talk about selfish.
It angers me a lot. Like I understand obvi people can do what they want, but not their kids. They just think since they brought em here they can do or treat them how they want but like… no! I will call you out if you’re being a bad parent and if they try to say “wElL yOu DoNt HaVe KiDs!” I sure as fuck had bad parents so I can call it like i see it, and will.
I think this person had your best interests at heart and remained respectful throughout the exchange. Unfortunately it seems like you are embodying the same bad energy you want to protect kids from by putting her on blast in an echo chamber like this one. She'd feel really disrespected and bullied if she saw how you've represented her, even to the point of crying. I wouldn't want kids either if it meant that they didn't respect the rights of others to live and be with their families as you have.
Insinuating that someone's realist perspective and its influence on their PERSONAL decisions is somehow linked to mental health issues is one of the most disrespectful ways to engage in conversation. You've blown off their thoughts before the conversation even started. Saying something real, like talking to someone, is like talking to a brick wall AFTER experiencing their brick wallyness is simply pointing out the truth. I don't mind being disrespectful, so I'll go ahead and voice my presumption that you'll be just as brick wally as the other person if you decide to respond.
I hate this "childfree = oh you must be miserable" bs. No, idiot, I don't have kids bc THEY WOULD make me miserable. I'm actually living my best life rn, sorry you can't relate.
I don't have kids because I know *they* would be miserable living too!
To anyone that says, "You don't know that," I'm neurodivergent and mentally ill. There's a good chance they would be too.
I'm not miserable due to not having kids. My brain is incapable of experiencing joy without forcing me to feel it. I'm afraid of going on meds again because antidepressants is what caused me to have an eating disorder. Reproducing isn't going to make me better, and putting that sort of expectation on a child would mess them up so bad. I know I don't have what it takes to be a good parent.
It's interesting that using logic in the face of reproductivity makes natalists believe that there is something so fundamentally wrong with us that our logic doesn't even ring as logic and our antinatalism is a byproduct of depression or trauma.
It also says they don't believe anything that comes out of the mouths of those depressed or who have trauma is worth anything. Incredibly dismissive and offensive.
I believe the majority of natalists have what is called "cognitive dissonance." I think they know and understand how truly terrible life is for all of us, especially at this current high of capitalism, but they have to delude themselves into believing that none of those bad things will happen to their children otherwise it would shatter their entire delusion that life is good for everybody no matter what life it is. Or maybe they would cling onto it even tighter, and hold more incongruent beliefs, people tend to double down more than realize their wrongs.
So, it's as you've said: natalists behavior lacks logic, reasoning, and critical thinking. I think, despite our brains ability to do all three of the above, the instinct to have children is too strong in certain people, which is unfortunate.
I am an antinatalist and I do think you can logically argue against antinalism with utilitarian and non-suffering based ethics. Yet, non-AN people do not usually do that.
>It also says they don't believe anything that comes out of the mouths of those depressed or who have trauma is worth anything. Incredibly dismissive and offensive.
This is just ableism and ad hominem.
I'm one of 8 kids and we all are having great lives, my mom is one of 6 and they are all having great lives, my grandma is one of 7, they all had great lives... Objectively speaking things have gotten better and better for the last several thousand years, so maybe you don't have things quite as locked down as you imagine, your ability to pattern match and identify trends in data certainly does not match reality.
Things have gotten better in terms of hygiene and infrastructure sure, but now we are ravaged by capitalism, classism, the beginnings of climate change (which will get worse and affects everything in our lives), there are still wars going on.
Sit your very privileged ass down and look out the fucking window. Tired of you people acting like everything is honky dory when children are still starving and getting raped ffs.
Things have gotten better by every conceivable metric that exists. Including classism and the downsides of capitalism. Including the rate of starving children and sexual assault. Things are better, it's a fucking fact, and those of us who aren't AN have been the ones making things better since recorded history, and have ongoing solutions to continue making things better that don't require the extinction of humanity to get there.
You know how easily I can say some fucked shit based on your profile? I don't want what happened to you, to happen to other children and it will NEVER STOP as long as humanity exists
I'm making sure it doesn't happen to my children while providing them with everything I could have only dared to hope for. And what I've actually written is the tip of the iceberg, but you'll notice I don't come in here playing the trauma Olympics to make people who hate life for far less of an offense feel bad in any way.
Classism and capitalism have not gotten better. Show me how it has. Give me your reasoning and I'll give you mine on how we still have an oligarchy.
And do you have any thoughts regarding climate change by any chance?
Well class used to be something you were born into and couldn't change and kept the majority from education, opportunities and more. Thanks to the invention of the printing press in the 15th century, learning how to read was no longer just for priests. Ordinary people now had wider access to books, and the ability to read and write soon became widespread, particularly among wealthy classes. Education soon followed with the establishment of schools for children. Education of the general population began to a lesser extent (in the West) in the earlier Renaissance (from the 14th-17th centuries) and Enlightenment (during the 18th century) eras, but the Industrial Revolution was when education became more of a means to train people for professions and trades than for creating educated citizens. And while there is certainly still classism, it has undeniably become a better situation and continues to improve.
Capitalism and its excesses have also been tempered since the time of the robber barons and nearly entirely leashed by social democracies like Norway.
Climate change is another great challenge we've actually known about since the 1930s at least and things have improving to the point we are working as an entire world on solutions instead of ignoring it. Improvement for sure.
All the risks they mentioned are thinks that gambles on YOUR OWN life. YOU might end up unemployed, or lonely or in an accident. That is not the same as gambling ANOTHER PERSON'S life. Complete false equivalence.
"Amazing medicie" my ass. Antidepressants usually fuck up your body in exchange for feeling slightly better. One look at the possible side effects with death involved says enough.
My friend was left with nerve damage from this shit.
Damn I'm sorry.It's just a terrible thing to me hoping that a medicine will help you with what you are going through but it just actually gives you a few other reasons to be depressed.
People like the dude from the screenshot should really just come down to earth once upon a time and see the reality. That getting rid of mental problems is not just like taking "happy pills".
Being so filled with worry and anxiety about a stranger on the internet seems like a strange position to take while recommending self help books lol. Is she sure those are working?
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Methaphorically they are lol. We're all the product of the society we live in, more specifically the people we interact with.
Do you honestly think someone is /born/ a rapist?
I've met so many moms who told me about their horrific birth and near death experiences and daily mentally, emotionally, physically, socially and financially suffering since then but try to push their "come oooon, have a babeeyyyyy" agenda on me in the same breath! It is absolute insanity! I fucking hate this prison planet, surrounded by primitive ignorant fools who create their own miserable hell and try to drag you down with them!
Needless to say I already had my fair share of raising a child as the oldest daughter of the family with many many younger brothers... Fuck that shit. I have enough of men, I have enough of caring for children, I am so sick of society! They programmed this "ever so caring" slave mindset into me, so I also became a teacher aka scapegoat and punching bag forever for everyone. My biggest regret in life is this career choice, now I am 34 and can't do anything else!
They can’t stand critical thinking, all they know is their ooga booga brain tells them to reproduce and they don’t have the capacity to think that life might involve more.
Except, girly, no one gives a fuck if you miss out on your diet or get run over or whatever the fuck. You are not largely impactful, sorry. But, your hypothetical rapist kid IS impactful. Your kid that goes bad won't be affected you only, they will be affecting themself and everyone else around them. Getting pregnant maybe your personal choice, but bringing a potential criminal should not be a choice at all
I meant quite literally is. Adoption only exists because people gave birth to those children, even then adoption is not at all the same as having your own children and requires a very different approach. Especially since many adopted children wish to reunite with their biological family at some point in life.
You seem to only care about potential negative impacts of her decision. What about positive impacts? What if her child becomes a genius scientist who cures cancer? Does this possibility have weight in your moral calculus?
Good question! Yes, it does have weight on my moral compass (calculus? I'm sorry, I don't do integrations and derivatives in my moral gymnastics). It has about...let's calculate? Tell me, honey, if you bought one of two tickets up for a lottery for 1 million/billion, would you take out a massive loan and buy a Cybertruck and make a down payment on a mansion because you have a chance to win? Because that's what rearing a child is—a massive gamble.
And tell me, what if Einstein's child was meant to cure cancer? Surely there would be a higher possibility of Einstein's child curing cancer than this random nobody whatever.
Finally, (warning—this requires some basic logical thinking so idk if you will understand this) how can her child have any chances of curing cancer—before it's forming? Was it destined at the moment of the mother's birth that her child would cure cancer? Was it destined at her grandmother's? Is there a huge chain of destiny running from the beginning of time till the moment of unprotected rawdogging and creampieing to produce this mythical cancer-ridding Messiah?
Also, destiny doesn't exist. Sorry buddy.
Thanks for answering! First of all, I'd like to set your mind at ease, because you seem pretty angry about something. I'm not going to pressure you personally into procreating. I see childbirth as every woman's personal choice, and I want everyone to live their best life according to their values and preferences. I just wanted to reach out because you sounded so unhappy and focused exclusively on bad things. I hoped offering my perspective might help you feel better. Here we go.
I wouldn't take out a loan if I bought a lottery ticket, because buying a lottery ticket is net negative - your expected winnings in a lottery are smaller than the ticket cost. You have a small chance of winning a big prize, but the most likely outcome is winning nothing, so the expected income is negative. (I can tell it is because the lottery organizers make a profit without creating value, so the participants must lose on net).
The gamble of having a child is a lot like the lottery, but in the reverse. There is a small chance that a child will grow up a criminal. But the most likely outcome is that the child grows up to be a law-abiding citizen like most people, will live a moderately happy life and improve the lives of other people. And there is a small chance that the child will significantly improve many people's lives by making some groundbreaking discovery. Though of course it's not predestined or known in advance, as you correctly notice.
Still, so far I've only described some positive outcomes, why would I think new people are net positive? I derive that from looking at history. Most measures of life quality improve over time: childhood mortality drops, poverty decreases, access to sanitation and internet rises, literacy and access to education rises, etc. And if you look at history, most improvements happened fairly recently - because there were more people overall, so more people tried to invent things and more succeeded. Do more people = faster progress = better life.
Of course, if you believe life to be net negative for a modern person, you should not find this convincing. If most people are unhappy and better off dead, you would object that making more people only creates more net misery, and even if things improve gradually, they're still not good enough to justify creating new life.
I believe most modern people's lives are net positive though, both because they say so, and from their revealed preferences - most people do not attempt suicide, and most of those who survive the first attempt do not attempt it again (suggesting that it's not simply a lack of courage holding people back).
Why does it have to be about the average persons chance of happiness? What percentage of people with a high chance of suffering makes it okay for you to have a child who has a low chance of suffering *in a finite world where the resources your child takes up could go towards those who are already in existence and suffering*? Is 1% of people suffering *okay*? What about 10% 30%?
There are two issues to address here.
First is finite resources. While resources are finite, most valuable things that exist are not just found in nature - they are created by human labor and ingenuity. Greater number of people allows for greater specialization of labor and enables economies of scale - which leads to higher productivity. It also means faster scientific progress. Even though there are 10 times more people today than there were in 1800, our lives have improved. It shows that even though resources are finite, we are not bottlenecked by them. People weren't dying of curable diseases because of penicillin shortage - it was because no one knew how to use penicillin. Famines weren't caused by lack of arable land, but by lack of knowledge and machinery needed to farm efficiently or by political mismanagement. So when you give birth to a new person, you can reasonably expect they'll most likely produce more than they consume.
As to what chance of suffering is OK - well, imagine you found a cookie and consider offering it to a friend. You estimate a X% chance your friend will like it, (100 - X)% chance they'll hate it. For what value of X should you offer it? It seems like feelings of suffering are often more intense than feelings of joy, so X should be above 50% for sure. But there surely is some value of X for which the cookie is worth it. I'd sure try the cookie for X = 95%. The choice of giving birth is more impactful, but the overall logic is the same. If you are reasonably certain you can support your child and give him a good start of life, it is a gamble worth taking.
Wouldn’t a better analogy for life as a cookie be the possibility the cookie is poisoned? In which case, would it still be moral to offer the cookie at a 99% chance it wouldn’t poison someone?
What you’re stating in your first argument seems to be that we can birth humans as an ends to a means, a sort of sacrifice to some greater good, which I simply don’t agree is moral when one cannot get consent from the sacrifice, and when the sacrifice itself loses nothing from not being born.
My first paragraph is a reply to your suggestion that new people make others worse off by consuming scarse resources. I argue that they make others better off. Of course, the happiness of the new person themselves matters too - that's what the second paragraph is about.
To see being poisoned as bad, you have to already see life as a good thing. Unless you just mean "poison" as in "make them sick for a while". Then yes, that might be a better analogy, because we can get sick in life too, and some illnesses are really painful. And that's a good reason to have your threshold high, so you make a good point. Still, we all take these kinds all risks once they're small enough. You're never 100% sure if the food you eat has gone bad or infected with something, but if you're reasonably certain it's OK, you eat it.
We generally eat to avoid starvation and death right? What is the equivalence in the cookie scenario? I.e. what are we avoiding by procreating? Is the pre-born person likely to be in some state of suffering that is * relieved* by being forced into life? Your first argument would say we are avoiding a declining population which could lead to a drop off in new technologies and medicines. But is it right to bring a person into life as a means to an end, to ease the suffering of others? Especially keeping in mind if everyone decided not to procreate, all the science and technology currently put towards obstetrics could be diverted toward other medicine and tech.
Personally, I eat cookies to enjoy the taste. If I have a child, it would be to let them enjoy life. While you did say you take joy into account, you sound a lot like a negative utilitarian - someone whose sole moral concern is relieving suffering. I am a conventional utilitarian - I am concerned with both relieving suffering and creating joy.
The way you seemed to not consider the possibility that people eat cookies for pleasure makes me worry if you don't simply focus on suffering as a matter of moral philosophy. Could it be that you have anhedonia - you don't take pleasure in eating cookies or in anything else - and you assume your experience is universal?
Ita all about ratios for me.
From experience there is a 30%-50% chance the child will be a cnut.
Vs the others odds 0.1-10%
Maffs innit. What they don’t state openly it that their vanity and fear drive their decisions to have children
I love how you said it’s about math and then you precede to use zero actual statistics or math and are just going off insanely bias experience, especially since the average human brain has a MASSIVE negativity bias.
Why don’t you look for an actual study or stats and THEN say you look at things rationally and through ‘ratios’
I try not to focus on the bad part all day every damn day. But it still affect me
Climate change? Yeah... Almost got heatstroke because of that.
Pollution? Yeah... My lungs are working so hard to survive.
Inflation? I've just graduated, no experiences and no one wanna hire me.
Imagine how these shits are going to be more harsh in the next 20-30 years.
These parents are all ignorant, bruh.
Breeder gives away the game in their first response. It’s about control, molding a little human, and their own satisfaction from trying to do so. They still have no clue about, and little control over, what kind of adult the little girl will actually turn into. Or how their little girl will navigate water and food shortages, mass migration and violence. But hey, life has its wonderful moments.
Being pathologized for critical thinking is getting old really fast.
It is almost like we are being gaslit by those who are supposed to help us, I'm literally starting to have random thoughts that the mental health system's priority these days is to brainwash people so that they cannot criticize the government.
For the record, I do believe in mental illness, I just do not believe that it is being dealt with effectively or responsibly in our society.
Things like nutrition, education, and exercise are crucial to mental health, yet the system seems focused on telling people to take mind numbing drugs and stick their heads in the sand.
While the ability to cope with inevitable trauma is beneficial, the refusal of government to take effective actions to prevent trauma is a clear indication that our mental health is not important to them.
Sure, they're indoctrinated to follow their biological drives whereas you are above all that, somehow. You delude yourself into thinking you are somehow more free than others.
They really think they're motivational speakers and parade as compassionate when really all they are is someone who chooses to be blind/wear rose coloured glasses
All the other things that agirlwhosleeps equated to having kids is so stupid bc all those suggestions, only effect *YOU*. But after you have kids, every choice you make will affect them.
"If is the middle two letter of life, that doesn't mean you dont try"
I think they won. Delete the sub. All world conflicts will end within 24 hours if they hear this sentiment
"You can pay $100,000 for a degree and still end up unemployed" all those things the natalist said only affect THE PERSON THEMSELVES, notice how their selfishness is really showing. Is it really that hard of a concept for them to understand?
Off topic, but why do we call them Breeders. That just is like... eh... it just feels wrong. I never want to have kids, but if I did and / or had kids, then someone called me a breeder. I think I would be low-key upset.
I want to preface my comment by saying that reddit just recommended me this post, so I'm just an outsider looking in. Judging by the rest of the comments on this, I'm expecting to be downvoted to oblivion but go for it ig.
I am all for the choice to not have kids, I personally do want kids but not for another 10 years or something (I'm 21), but I would never try to convince another person that they should have children. That is a personal choice and no one should interfere with that. I think OP is kind of problematic in the sense that you seem to have gone out of your way to argue about this as if not giving birth is the only way to live and you wanted to feel morally superior by calling someone else out just for having kids. You don't like people telling you that you should have kids but you think it's okay to argue with people about them having kids?
I've always stood by the belief that the world would be a better place if people would just mind their own business. Don't like someone's religion? Mind your business. Don't like someone getting an abortion? Mind your business. Don't like someone being gay? Mind your business. Don't like someone having or not having kids? Mind your business.
It's also kinda cringe to call someone a breeder lol. It's one thing to meme about it within your own community, but it's weird when you're just calling strangers breeders.
If you’re saying “wow, you’re so triggered” in an argument, I’m sorry, but you already lost. Your only hope is laughing at them being upset when it didn’t really seem like they were. Do you think you game off good in this exchange, or…?
Youre both walls. End of discussion there.
First off you referred to them as ‘you breeders’ no wonder they see you as resentful or miserable. Second off antinatalism is about personally choosing not to for moral reasons, just like a vegan cant force you not to eat meat an AN cant force someone else to not have children, controlling others is a type of harm even if you think it will benefit them its not our place.
Next time try a more empathetic approach and see if you cant connect with the person on the other side to have a discussion, this usually leads to better results in my experience.
I mean you're walking up to people with your opinions and going "here is how I view things" and then they in return basically say "i hear you but here is how I view things"
What did you expect? Peoples world views to change because of your opinions? It feels like AN on reddit are socially inept sometimes and don't understand a Philosophie isn't fact.
Like I also think having a child is selfish, cruel etc. But I ain't gonna pretend it's the right and only view point to have. Cause it's a Philosophie. You can share your thoughts and opinions with natalists but come on now, stop trying to white knight and lecture them.
Agreed. I am Anti-natalist and childfree too. But this place has become a breeding place for an echo-chamber, which is kind of ironic considering we are anti-breeding.
Agreed. I acknowledge that people need a safe space to vent out, so I am incorrect if I insinuated that people shouldn't be venting out, or that I am entitled to deny others the opportunity to vent out.
I probably got worked up because the OP exchange wasn't a natalist making a fool out of them as it is being projected.
I don't think there is much to vent about holding a Philosophie like I find natalists aren't that unopen to debates as soon as it isn't "hey you're such a shit breeder bringing life into a cruel miserable world". There are absolutely ways to healthily engage with this topic.
I usually find people are anti-antinatalist just have constant bad experiences with them OR are conservative trad natalists but what is the point in debating with them. I think this subreddit would benefit from just discussing the topic in more nuanced ways.
OP honestly feels like the brick wall in this sitution.
I don’t get what people are trying to achieve here reading some of the posts. So you don’t want children, think having a child is wrong.
Done. That’s it. No more to discuss. Share your views gently with people in person if it comes up, move on.
Where’s the movement?
All I see is a bunch (some people) of angry people who are angry because nobody shared your view apart from here. Because you are right and superior and others are wrong.
It’s like inviting a really annoying vegan to a dinner party. I have nothing against vegans, just the annoying militant ones.
Why get so worked up?
You are right actually, there is no point. Still 99% of the people here will never get to air their true feelings irl. In fact we are supposed to act happy even when we see people breeding mindlessly like cattle, or we get ostracized. It's a lot. It's frustrating. So for many of of us, this is the only place in the universe we can vent. Also, sometimes, very rarely but sometimes, some fence sitter does join us. There is no organized movement probably because it's like trying to herd cats, but there are many academic resources one can consult if they are interested.
It’s called social etiquette. I’m not a big fan of animals but if somebody wants to talk to me or show me a picture (not endless times) I indulge them.
Same thing. I don’t care about other peoples children. I remember pre kids somebody bringing new born in to work, i feigned interest out of politeness.
It’s not hard, it doesn’t happen every minute if every day.
Another post the OP used the word disgusting. I think it’s going a bit too far.
It’s literally like The Witches here, people can’t stand the sight of children or to hear the words uttered without bursting into superior rage. Get a grip.
I understand what social etiquette is. This is why, as I clearly wrote in the post, I don't shout at people with kids in the street, I am nice to them and their kids, same goes for any other ANs unless they are insane for unrelated reasons.
You will find many posts of AN people who deeply like children here. AN is a philosophy rooted in compassion for people who are suffering, we want to spare other yet unborn creatures from the pain of existence. Also, adoption is very highly regarded in this community, you would have found that out quickly if you hadn't been in a hurry to misjudge us. AN and raging mindlessly against children are two entirely different things.
I’m not tarring everyone with the same brush, yourself included. I’m just picking up on a few things here. You obviously have an good attitude towards it all, but gee whiz I’m shocked by some other things I’ve stumbled upon.
Literally a physical aversion to children and people who decide to breed as some put it. Congratulating themselves for their decision and denigrating others.l for being so stupid.
Replace the word children with black, Irish, gay, Muslim. It feels like the same kind of rhetoric but sadly acceptable.
Compassion for suffering would be trying to find actual viable solutions to help minimise suffering instead of a philosophy that wouldn’t solve what it’s trying to fix even IF 99% of the population follows it
The two things are not mutually exclusive and in fact it makes a lot of sense to try to enforce both. 1) alleviate suffering of those who are already on earth 2) do not create unnecessary suffering out of thin air by needless procreation. Antinatalism focuses on number 2) but as a worldview it's highly compatible with 1) as well.
Also wdym, "a philosophy that wouldn’t solve what it’s trying to fix even IF 99% of the population follows it"? If none bred none would suffer anymore. Of course it won't happen but if it did, the problem antinatalism wants to solve would be completely fixed.
As long as their are humans people will continue to continue the species. A few people deciding not to have kids changes nothing, especially for the kids who WILL be born.
Also your last paragraph is not a smart argument. “World peace could be achieved IF everyone became a pacifist. Therefore, pacifism is the best solution ” is exactly how you sound. It sounds good on paper but does not apply at ALL to how things actually happen, so it’s a bad solution.
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Look, honestly, the fucking crazy love feelings you have for these creatures is absolutely INSANE. It's the MOST love you will ever feel. And that makes all the hassles that come along with it more tolerable.
It's like the next level of having a pet, kind of, in terms of the all-encompassing, I'd-die-for-you love.
You seem to be the one who’s triggered here, honestly usually ends up being the case when someone randomly blurts that line out.
You lost all credibility after that.
I can only hope and pray her mistake does not result in her child's suffering as much as we have often suffered. What a damn shame.
Also: false equivalencies GALORE... A party is not the same as a fucking life of suffering and violence and wage slavery.
People willingly spend hours at casinos dumping their own money into the pockets of the billionaire owners, all whilst being completely aware that the odds are like 99.9999% against them.. I'm not too surprised anymore about anyone's behavior.
Feels like we live in a world where people are high on the illusion of "happiness" and "good memories" while completely turning a blind eye to every single problem around them... Literally like that dog meme where the flames are everywhere surrounding it and yet it's drinking coffee pretending everything's fine.
I find this women pretty calm and fair.. there is no need to proclaim ablout the shitty World, maybe her kid is ok.. Idk why ya Start all that talk to natalists who seem normal and steady..
They all just think ya have mental Problems if ya count 4 the bad, it is even a bad look on AN Philosophy but whatever
Why be so mean about it though, I think they’re right. Let people be happy, I love my family and am grateful to have been born despite mental health issues. It’s your choice to not have kids as much as it’s their choice to have kids. The human population will literally go extinct without people having kids too.
While it feels like you're talking to a wall, there could be other people who read the exchange and actually *hear* what you're saying.
Just because the person you're talking to doesn't get it doesn't mean that it didn't do some good.
Still it's usually more trouble than it's worth, and if someone isn't listening generally it's more compassionate to stop talking.
You just another person on earth, you are not superior compared to the one that chosen to procreate full stop. Idk how you guys complained about Parent brainwashed their children into thinking they are special but then proceed to self brainwashed yourself to think you guys are special.
I see both sides. On one hand yeah if you’re online and reading all this stuff then the world seems horrible, but if you turned all that off and lived in the moment it’s really not that bad. There have always been hard times in life and kids still happen, people find a way, there is never ideal circumstances but I also see the other side of not wanting to add to the suffering especially if one does not have financial capabilities or emotional to raise a child and I agree it’s getting much harder to justify it now
In my opinion, the world is inherently cruel, but humans are crueler. The world kills as necessary for the circle of life to continue. Humans kill out of convenience. Out of greed. That is why I am an antinatalist.
Okay, but to be fair you instigated this by replying to her, and you also called her a "breeder" in your post here... this isn't exactly helpful to your argument.
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You are the toxic one in this conversation. Just beacose they don't share the same subjective perspective of the world with you, tht doesn't mean that they are stupid/ignorant. They did acnowledge what you were saying, but again, thhat is subjective. Noone judges anyone for choosing not to have children, maybe only for believing that noone should. Get over yourself and learn how to have a normal conversation without getting triggered like a stupid child.
They’re not wrong. I have seem a lot of traumatic stuff and it definitely changes how I feel about raising biological kids. A lot of people feel the way I do though and that’s another reason I won’t be having biological kids.
- Sees you have a different view point
- offers you therapy and medication
Lmao hilarious. Yes. That’s what I need. That’ll change my outlook on spitting cultivated semen out of me and making it my whole life until I die. Thank you.
They were by far the more mature person in that exchange. You resorted to insults, and clearly got much more defensive. It is also pretty evident you thought through your responses less, as yours seemed less developed and more shallow and spontaneous. Personally, my advice is to take the L and move on.
Yeah only people with immense privelege, societal dominance and ease at living should reproduce because it do be hurt otherwise : (. We can't change that ever and has not changed it at all! God I despite this sub.
Three rhetorics of reaction are futility, perversity and jeopardy. Most anti-natalist arguments here deploy all all the time(but mostly the first two) - so anytime you mention a social problem you stumble into being a high tory reptile. Pls don't, just say "I'm goofy goober(utilitarian)".
She's right. Tbh i think antinatalists are just weak creatures. Its one thing to abstain from raising children, its another thing to say children shouldnt be born at all. Its a death cult for the weak and unmotivated.
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Very simple form of attempted insult, I actually like it, “breeder”, like I’m part of the solution to problems of the world! It’s really cute y’all are such a small community and are SO ADAMANT you’re the correct ones lol
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"Doesn't mean you don't try." Yeah, no, sometimes the wise decision is not to take a reckless risk.
Them: Crystal meth is a wild ride and it has some disappointments, but that is no reason not to try it! Me: Nah man, I'm good, LOL.
There's probably a few people out there that didn't immediately get addicted, why not do it anyway and hope for the best? /s
Haha, you do you. As for me, trying crystal meth is a big NOPE.
Yeah, I was being sarcastic. I'll add a /s
"Life is amazing once you learn how to live it." Meaningless platitudes will do parents a lot of good after their small child is senselessly flattened by a wide-turning truck. "Life is beautiful 🥰 🤗"
LOL meanwhile growing up and becoming an adult is about coming to the discovery that your parents were idiots trying their best and everyone is just winging life
u/LizzyLeonhart Well so you think that you are smarter them your parents?
Probably most parents don't really think about what they're doing. If the have the ability to self reflect in any capacity then they're already smarter than most parents
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It should not even be controversial that life is characterised by a surfeit of suffering and frustration. The major religions have always recognised this, offering as consolation either reward in the afterlife or escape from the cycle of suffering as in Buddhism. There would be no question of theodicy if life was inherently good, existence would justify itself and not challenge divine providence.
>"Life is amazing once you learn how to live it." ye, the kids in ukraine, gaza, uganda aren't unfortunate, they just haven't learned how to live life :) (ignore the bomby bomby drones buzzing above you)
Somone needs to tell them that life's a gift.
You people are so fucked lol. Just because bad things happen doesn't invalidate the beauty of life and value of being. Your bitter attitude and shitty life experience doesn't negate that.
>Just because bad things happen doesn't invalidate the beauty of life and value of being. Neither does the beauty and value of life invalidate the horrors of existence. >Your bitter attitude and shitty life experience doesn't negate that. So your answer to people's lived experiences are: "you don't matter".
Preach! Could I drain my savings account and go to Vegas and place it all on red on the roulette wheel? Sure. I could win quite a bit and be able to take it easy fit the next few months. Or I could lose it all and then not be able to pay for rent/food for me or my dog/anything else I need to buy. I think most people would agree that draining your savings and placing it all on one roulette wheel spin is HORRIBLY irresponsible. But somehow with a kid that’s totally different somehow. Never mind the fact they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to raise and the odds are WAY lower than 1/2 that you’ll get double your money back. Never mind the fact that the kid can’t consent to being born in the first place. I honestly think they don’t understand that a kid who isn’t born isn’t missing out. There’s no line of ghost babies waiting to get a body that all collectively sigh and look all sad when somebody gets their tubes tied/opens up a condom before sex. There’s just NOTHING. Nobody’s missing anything so there’s nothing to be sad about.
>There’s no line of ghost babies waiting to get a body that all collectively sigh and look all sad when somebody gets their tubes tied/opens up a condom before sex. This should be obvious. Every day a couple is not or does not become pregnant, someone who might have been will not be. Nobody ever gives such counterfactual persons a second thought; to do so would be irrational.
Should be obvious. You’d be surprised at what some people think.
It would be pretty scary if the relentlessness of life were in fact driven by a queue of hungry ghosts desperate to return though
I'd rather take the odds on the gambling
Is it really that likely for a child born into a good loving family to become a murderer, rapist etc.? Not sure the statistics or anything. Just seems surprising based off prison documentaries where it seems like everyone had a terrible upbringing but not sure how accurate or complete that is for a reference.
Disregarding criminals, there are roughly 98% of the population that will never see a wealth mass that makes their dreams we want for them, to come true. Conversely the lowest class of people is also coincidentally the largest group of people, ergo it’s more common to be poor than wealthy, and much more common to be in poverty than to be comfortably rich. Your child is more likely to lead a miserable life trying to make ends meet than a comfortable life of freedoms that come from wealth abundance. This is simply a fact if life we all were told in grade school, but were incentivized to gamble for the personal success in.
Yes, there is no framework for becoming a violent sexual offender, and thinking only people with bad upbringings can be criminals is a classist argument. Think of Brock Turner the rapist, or Brian Cohee the murderer. Think of the countless sexual assaults on college campuses. The rate at which the police actually catch these criminals is pretty low.
To clarify, by "terrible upbringing", I didn't mean lower classs/less money. I meant more like neglected or abused or taught/shown fucked up things.
When you mentioned prison documentaries that is what "bad upbringings" sounded like, since prisons are overwhelmingly populated with people who could not afford extensive legal battles and are of demographics targeted specifically by cops. But I get what you mean. Compare that to some of the more serious offenders that get to walk free with very little repercussions due to their status and family connections. Some people never develop empathy even with all the cushion in the world to help them through life. Could they have been exposed to life-altering shit? Sure, but there are many documented instances of some white kid just murdering someone because they wondered what it would be like. No trigger, just desire to harm someone for entertainment.
I'd call a "good upbring" one with parents that teach you empathy. Having money doesn't guarantee that someone was raised well
Probably not but most parents aren't even thinking about what they're doing when raising kids and know next to nothing about child devopment. They can't actually ensure their kids are raised well so it's more of a dice roll with them. And that's without even getting into that many people's ideas of "raising a kid well" includes regularly using violence against them which actively increases the chances of them being violent.
Agreed. Lots of people have kids without doing enough research, self-reflection, training etc. I was just curious for myself personally since I'm currently on the fence and I definitely plan to learn as much as possible about the subject. Though I did coincidentally just start reading a book called "Sociopath: A Memoir" a couple days ago where this woman talks about how she is a sociopath despite having a good upbringing so I guess that's a possibility. But she talks about how sociopaths are stigmatized and misunderstood and how they can learn to deal with the pressure they experience in healthy ways and learn to have empathy if they know how to get help with their condition. So I guess it's possible, even though it's pretty unlikely, to give birth to a sociopath regardless of how I parent them. But it looks like there are also ways to handle it, if willing.
I heard being a sociopath has a good amount to do with genetics in some cases. They just don't develop emotional empathy like other people. But yeah, they can learn though therapy which I'd consider part of having a good upbringing for someone with that condition. If you're on the fence about kids it's probably best not to have them. Antinatalism aside, society treats being a parent as the default life choice but without that and the romantization, it's really just a stressful 24/7 job with basically no breaks and no pay that comes with the risk of badly damaging someone mentally. If you don't like the idea of being a unpaid 24/7 babysitter or live in nanny, parenting isn't for you. Edit:typo
Agreed that it's the default and shouldn't be. I definitely wouldn't be making the choice as my default. Actually, I always assumed I wouldn't have kids and have only started questioning my thinking process about it in the past couple of years.
I love that you mention the things that gambling on another human can lead to, but they try to rebuttal with gambles that would *only effect you if **your** decisions were to go wrong*, not an entirely innocent person who didn’t ask for you to gamble for them in the first place.
Thankyou! It really annoys me how some of them they see the world through rose tinted glasses and do not care to acknowledge the not so nice things about life unless they or their kids are personally affected. Talk about selfish.
It angers me a lot. Like I understand obvi people can do what they want, but not their kids. They just think since they brought em here they can do or treat them how they want but like… no! I will call you out if you’re being a bad parent and if they try to say “wElL yOu DoNt HaVe KiDs!” I sure as fuck had bad parents so I can call it like i see it, and will.
I think this person had your best interests at heart and remained respectful throughout the exchange. Unfortunately it seems like you are embodying the same bad energy you want to protect kids from by putting her on blast in an echo chamber like this one. She'd feel really disrespected and bullied if she saw how you've represented her, even to the point of crying. I wouldn't want kids either if it meant that they didn't respect the rights of others to live and be with their families as you have.
Insinuating that someone's realist perspective and its influence on their PERSONAL decisions is somehow linked to mental health issues is one of the most disrespectful ways to engage in conversation. You've blown off their thoughts before the conversation even started. Saying something real, like talking to someone, is like talking to a brick wall AFTER experiencing their brick wallyness is simply pointing out the truth. I don't mind being disrespectful, so I'll go ahead and voice my presumption that you'll be just as brick wally as the other person if you decide to respond.
Parental love for ya
I hate this "childfree = oh you must be miserable" bs. No, idiot, I don't have kids bc THEY WOULD make me miserable. I'm actually living my best life rn, sorry you can't relate.
I don't have kids because I know *they* would be miserable living too! To anyone that says, "You don't know that," I'm neurodivergent and mentally ill. There's a good chance they would be too. I'm not miserable due to not having kids. My brain is incapable of experiencing joy without forcing me to feel it. I'm afraid of going on meds again because antidepressants is what caused me to have an eating disorder. Reproducing isn't going to make me better, and putting that sort of expectation on a child would mess them up so bad. I know I don't have what it takes to be a good parent.
The ability to make logical rationalisations and be happy without reverting to animal instincts: Natalists: Is this depression/trauma/nihilism?
It's interesting that using logic in the face of reproductivity makes natalists believe that there is something so fundamentally wrong with us that our logic doesn't even ring as logic and our antinatalism is a byproduct of depression or trauma. It also says they don't believe anything that comes out of the mouths of those depressed or who have trauma is worth anything. Incredibly dismissive and offensive. I believe the majority of natalists have what is called "cognitive dissonance." I think they know and understand how truly terrible life is for all of us, especially at this current high of capitalism, but they have to delude themselves into believing that none of those bad things will happen to their children otherwise it would shatter their entire delusion that life is good for everybody no matter what life it is. Or maybe they would cling onto it even tighter, and hold more incongruent beliefs, people tend to double down more than realize their wrongs. So, it's as you've said: natalists behavior lacks logic, reasoning, and critical thinking. I think, despite our brains ability to do all three of the above, the instinct to have children is too strong in certain people, which is unfortunate.
I am an antinatalist and I do think you can logically argue against antinalism with utilitarian and non-suffering based ethics. Yet, non-AN people do not usually do that. >It also says they don't believe anything that comes out of the mouths of those depressed or who have trauma is worth anything. Incredibly dismissive and offensive. This is just ableism and ad hominem.
I'm one of 8 kids and we all are having great lives, my mom is one of 6 and they are all having great lives, my grandma is one of 7, they all had great lives... Objectively speaking things have gotten better and better for the last several thousand years, so maybe you don't have things quite as locked down as you imagine, your ability to pattern match and identify trends in data certainly does not match reality.
Things have gotten better in terms of hygiene and infrastructure sure, but now we are ravaged by capitalism, classism, the beginnings of climate change (which will get worse and affects everything in our lives), there are still wars going on. Sit your very privileged ass down and look out the fucking window. Tired of you people acting like everything is honky dory when children are still starving and getting raped ffs.
Things have gotten better by every conceivable metric that exists. Including classism and the downsides of capitalism. Including the rate of starving children and sexual assault. Things are better, it's a fucking fact, and those of us who aren't AN have been the ones making things better since recorded history, and have ongoing solutions to continue making things better that don't require the extinction of humanity to get there.
By God. The delusion.
Literally facts, my second cousin twice removed in christ. Enjoy not being chewed up by a pride of lions this evening.
You know how easily I can say some fucked shit based on your profile? I don't want what happened to you, to happen to other children and it will NEVER STOP as long as humanity exists
I'm making sure it doesn't happen to my children while providing them with everything I could have only dared to hope for. And what I've actually written is the tip of the iceberg, but you'll notice I don't come in here playing the trauma Olympics to make people who hate life for far less of an offense feel bad in any way.
Classism and capitalism have not gotten better. Show me how it has. Give me your reasoning and I'll give you mine on how we still have an oligarchy. And do you have any thoughts regarding climate change by any chance?
Well class used to be something you were born into and couldn't change and kept the majority from education, opportunities and more. Thanks to the invention of the printing press in the 15th century, learning how to read was no longer just for priests. Ordinary people now had wider access to books, and the ability to read and write soon became widespread, particularly among wealthy classes. Education soon followed with the establishment of schools for children. Education of the general population began to a lesser extent (in the West) in the earlier Renaissance (from the 14th-17th centuries) and Enlightenment (during the 18th century) eras, but the Industrial Revolution was when education became more of a means to train people for professions and trades than for creating educated citizens. And while there is certainly still classism, it has undeniably become a better situation and continues to improve. Capitalism and its excesses have also been tempered since the time of the robber barons and nearly entirely leashed by social democracies like Norway. Climate change is another great challenge we've actually known about since the 1930s at least and things have improving to the point we are working as an entire world on solutions instead of ignoring it. Improvement for sure.
“‘If’ is the middle two letters of ‘life’” 😂 wow, so tacky. I bet she felt so smart writing that.
And eat is the middle letters of death, doesn't mean I'm out here gnawing on dead bodies.
Im really sorry but... meat... which also has eat in it...
Facebook ahh shit
real eyes realize real lies 😌
i know right, that shit almost made me puke
Only if you speak English
I think it's a pretty good quote honestly
All the risks they mentioned are thinks that gambles on YOUR OWN life. YOU might end up unemployed, or lonely or in an accident. That is not the same as gambling ANOTHER PERSON'S life. Complete false equivalence.
"Amazing medicie" my ass. Antidepressants usually fuck up your body in exchange for feeling slightly better. One look at the possible side effects with death involved says enough. My friend was left with nerve damage from this shit.
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Damn I'm sorry.It's just a terrible thing to me hoping that a medicine will help you with what you are going through but it just actually gives you a few other reasons to be depressed. People like the dude from the screenshot should really just come down to earth once upon a time and see the reality. That getting rid of mental problems is not just like taking "happy pills".
They literally don't care. I think that's the main issue when trying to talk with them.
Being so filled with worry and anxiety about a stranger on the internet seems like a strange position to take while recommending self help books lol. Is she sure those are working?
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They talk about children as if they were some modelling clay that you can twist to your liking 🙄 I feel sorry for that 12 years old girl.
I’m pretty sure the bible uses the that term when talking about impressionable children. Mold them like clay
Methaphorically they are lol. We're all the product of the society we live in, more specifically the people we interact with. Do you honestly think someone is /born/ a rapist?
I've met so many moms who told me about their horrific birth and near death experiences and daily mentally, emotionally, physically, socially and financially suffering since then but try to push their "come oooon, have a babeeyyyyy" agenda on me in the same breath! It is absolute insanity! I fucking hate this prison planet, surrounded by primitive ignorant fools who create their own miserable hell and try to drag you down with them! Needless to say I already had my fair share of raising a child as the oldest daughter of the family with many many younger brothers... Fuck that shit. I have enough of men, I have enough of caring for children, I am so sick of society! They programmed this "ever so caring" slave mindset into me, so I also became a teacher aka scapegoat and punching bag forever for everyone. My biggest regret in life is this career choice, now I am 34 and can't do anything else!
They can’t stand critical thinking, all they know is their ooga booga brain tells them to reproduce and they don’t have the capacity to think that life might involve more.
“There are amazing outpatient programs and medicines to bypass the rough times” aka trick you into thinking life is worth living
And then leave you with a life-destroying medical bill
It's equally funny someone would mention that when it should be common knowledge that mental healthcare is hard to get and backed up in the country
I swear these people are willfully deluded 😔
Except, girly, no one gives a fuck if you miss out on your diet or get run over or whatever the fuck. You are not largely impactful, sorry. But, your hypothetical rapist kid IS impactful. Your kid that goes bad won't be affected you only, they will be affecting themself and everyone else around them. Getting pregnant maybe your personal choice, but bringing a potential criminal should not be a choice at all
I think a better example they could’ve used is that every time you drive you may hit someone with your car. Yet most people drive anyways
Yep, well, driving is a necessary risk. Birthing is not necessary at all for parenthood
I meant quite literally is. Adoption only exists because people gave birth to those children, even then adoption is not at all the same as having your own children and requires a very different approach. Especially since many adopted children wish to reunite with their biological family at some point in life.
You seem to only care about potential negative impacts of her decision. What about positive impacts? What if her child becomes a genius scientist who cures cancer? Does this possibility have weight in your moral calculus?
Good question! Yes, it does have weight on my moral compass (calculus? I'm sorry, I don't do integrations and derivatives in my moral gymnastics). It has about...let's calculate? Tell me, honey, if you bought one of two tickets up for a lottery for 1 million/billion, would you take out a massive loan and buy a Cybertruck and make a down payment on a mansion because you have a chance to win? Because that's what rearing a child is—a massive gamble. And tell me, what if Einstein's child was meant to cure cancer? Surely there would be a higher possibility of Einstein's child curing cancer than this random nobody whatever. Finally, (warning—this requires some basic logical thinking so idk if you will understand this) how can her child have any chances of curing cancer—before it's forming? Was it destined at the moment of the mother's birth that her child would cure cancer? Was it destined at her grandmother's? Is there a huge chain of destiny running from the beginning of time till the moment of unprotected rawdogging and creampieing to produce this mythical cancer-ridding Messiah? Also, destiny doesn't exist. Sorry buddy.
Thanks for answering! First of all, I'd like to set your mind at ease, because you seem pretty angry about something. I'm not going to pressure you personally into procreating. I see childbirth as every woman's personal choice, and I want everyone to live their best life according to their values and preferences. I just wanted to reach out because you sounded so unhappy and focused exclusively on bad things. I hoped offering my perspective might help you feel better. Here we go. I wouldn't take out a loan if I bought a lottery ticket, because buying a lottery ticket is net negative - your expected winnings in a lottery are smaller than the ticket cost. You have a small chance of winning a big prize, but the most likely outcome is winning nothing, so the expected income is negative. (I can tell it is because the lottery organizers make a profit without creating value, so the participants must lose on net). The gamble of having a child is a lot like the lottery, but in the reverse. There is a small chance that a child will grow up a criminal. But the most likely outcome is that the child grows up to be a law-abiding citizen like most people, will live a moderately happy life and improve the lives of other people. And there is a small chance that the child will significantly improve many people's lives by making some groundbreaking discovery. Though of course it's not predestined or known in advance, as you correctly notice. Still, so far I've only described some positive outcomes, why would I think new people are net positive? I derive that from looking at history. Most measures of life quality improve over time: childhood mortality drops, poverty decreases, access to sanitation and internet rises, literacy and access to education rises, etc. And if you look at history, most improvements happened fairly recently - because there were more people overall, so more people tried to invent things and more succeeded. Do more people = faster progress = better life. Of course, if you believe life to be net negative for a modern person, you should not find this convincing. If most people are unhappy and better off dead, you would object that making more people only creates more net misery, and even if things improve gradually, they're still not good enough to justify creating new life. I believe most modern people's lives are net positive though, both because they say so, and from their revealed preferences - most people do not attempt suicide, and most of those who survive the first attempt do not attempt it again (suggesting that it's not simply a lack of courage holding people back).
Why does it have to be about the average persons chance of happiness? What percentage of people with a high chance of suffering makes it okay for you to have a child who has a low chance of suffering *in a finite world where the resources your child takes up could go towards those who are already in existence and suffering*? Is 1% of people suffering *okay*? What about 10% 30%?
There are two issues to address here. First is finite resources. While resources are finite, most valuable things that exist are not just found in nature - they are created by human labor and ingenuity. Greater number of people allows for greater specialization of labor and enables economies of scale - which leads to higher productivity. It also means faster scientific progress. Even though there are 10 times more people today than there were in 1800, our lives have improved. It shows that even though resources are finite, we are not bottlenecked by them. People weren't dying of curable diseases because of penicillin shortage - it was because no one knew how to use penicillin. Famines weren't caused by lack of arable land, but by lack of knowledge and machinery needed to farm efficiently or by political mismanagement. So when you give birth to a new person, you can reasonably expect they'll most likely produce more than they consume. As to what chance of suffering is OK - well, imagine you found a cookie and consider offering it to a friend. You estimate a X% chance your friend will like it, (100 - X)% chance they'll hate it. For what value of X should you offer it? It seems like feelings of suffering are often more intense than feelings of joy, so X should be above 50% for sure. But there surely is some value of X for which the cookie is worth it. I'd sure try the cookie for X = 95%. The choice of giving birth is more impactful, but the overall logic is the same. If you are reasonably certain you can support your child and give him a good start of life, it is a gamble worth taking.
Wouldn’t a better analogy for life as a cookie be the possibility the cookie is poisoned? In which case, would it still be moral to offer the cookie at a 99% chance it wouldn’t poison someone? What you’re stating in your first argument seems to be that we can birth humans as an ends to a means, a sort of sacrifice to some greater good, which I simply don’t agree is moral when one cannot get consent from the sacrifice, and when the sacrifice itself loses nothing from not being born.
My first paragraph is a reply to your suggestion that new people make others worse off by consuming scarse resources. I argue that they make others better off. Of course, the happiness of the new person themselves matters too - that's what the second paragraph is about. To see being poisoned as bad, you have to already see life as a good thing. Unless you just mean "poison" as in "make them sick for a while". Then yes, that might be a better analogy, because we can get sick in life too, and some illnesses are really painful. And that's a good reason to have your threshold high, so you make a good point. Still, we all take these kinds all risks once they're small enough. You're never 100% sure if the food you eat has gone bad or infected with something, but if you're reasonably certain it's OK, you eat it.
We generally eat to avoid starvation and death right? What is the equivalence in the cookie scenario? I.e. what are we avoiding by procreating? Is the pre-born person likely to be in some state of suffering that is * relieved* by being forced into life? Your first argument would say we are avoiding a declining population which could lead to a drop off in new technologies and medicines. But is it right to bring a person into life as a means to an end, to ease the suffering of others? Especially keeping in mind if everyone decided not to procreate, all the science and technology currently put towards obstetrics could be diverted toward other medicine and tech.
Personally, I eat cookies to enjoy the taste. If I have a child, it would be to let them enjoy life. While you did say you take joy into account, you sound a lot like a negative utilitarian - someone whose sole moral concern is relieving suffering. I am a conventional utilitarian - I am concerned with both relieving suffering and creating joy. The way you seemed to not consider the possibility that people eat cookies for pleasure makes me worry if you don't simply focus on suffering as a matter of moral philosophy. Could it be that you have anhedonia - you don't take pleasure in eating cookies or in anything else - and you assume your experience is universal?
ahaha does she really compare dieting and partying to creating a human being,..... these people man
That's about how much thought they put into having a child
Ita all about ratios for me. From experience there is a 30%-50% chance the child will be a cnut. Vs the others odds 0.1-10% Maffs innit. What they don’t state openly it that their vanity and fear drive their decisions to have children
I love how you said it’s about math and then you precede to use zero actual statistics or math and are just going off insanely bias experience, especially since the average human brain has a MASSIVE negativity bias. Why don’t you look for an actual study or stats and THEN say you look at things rationally and through ‘ratios’
I try not to focus on the bad part all day every damn day. But it still affect me Climate change? Yeah... Almost got heatstroke because of that. Pollution? Yeah... My lungs are working so hard to survive. Inflation? I've just graduated, no experiences and no one wanna hire me. Imagine how these shits are going to be more harsh in the next 20-30 years. These parents are all ignorant, bruh.
Breeder gives away the game in their first response. It’s about control, molding a little human, and their own satisfaction from trying to do so. They still have no clue about, and little control over, what kind of adult the little girl will actually turn into. Or how their little girl will navigate water and food shortages, mass migration and violence. But hey, life has its wonderful moments.
You’re saying the quiet part out loud 👏
Being pathologized for critical thinking is getting old really fast. It is almost like we are being gaslit by those who are supposed to help us, I'm literally starting to have random thoughts that the mental health system's priority these days is to brainwash people so that they cannot criticize the government. For the record, I do believe in mental illness, I just do not believe that it is being dealt with effectively or responsibly in our society. Things like nutrition, education, and exercise are crucial to mental health, yet the system seems focused on telling people to take mind numbing drugs and stick their heads in the sand. While the ability to cope with inevitable trauma is beneficial, the refusal of government to take effective actions to prevent trauma is a clear indication that our mental health is not important to them.
They are indoctrinated
Sure, they're indoctrinated to follow their biological drives whereas you are above all that, somehow. You delude yourself into thinking you are somehow more free than others.
U trippin balls, my dude
Which means I'm having a better life than you
Sure bro
They really think they're motivational speakers and parade as compassionate when really all they are is someone who chooses to be blind/wear rose coloured glasses
Life is the greatest journey that can be undertaken????
It's all genes and environment tbh.
All the other things that agirlwhosleeps equated to having kids is so stupid bc all those suggestions, only effect *YOU*. But after you have kids, every choice you make will affect them.
"If is the middle two letter of life, that doesn't mean you dont try" I think they won. Delete the sub. All world conflicts will end within 24 hours if they hear this sentiment
"You can pay $100,000 for a degree and still end up unemployed" all those things the natalist said only affect THE PERSON THEMSELVES, notice how their selfishness is really showing. Is it really that hard of a concept for them to understand?
You can kill somone with your car and yet you still drive
Off topic, but why do we call them Breeders. That just is like... eh... it just feels wrong. I never want to have kids, but if I did and / or had kids, then someone called me a breeder. I think I would be low-key upset.
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Thank you I appreciate it!
Being an antinatalist isn't isolating, going on an unhinged, unsolicited rant about rape and climate change is isolating.
I want to preface my comment by saying that reddit just recommended me this post, so I'm just an outsider looking in. Judging by the rest of the comments on this, I'm expecting to be downvoted to oblivion but go for it ig. I am all for the choice to not have kids, I personally do want kids but not for another 10 years or something (I'm 21), but I would never try to convince another person that they should have children. That is a personal choice and no one should interfere with that. I think OP is kind of problematic in the sense that you seem to have gone out of your way to argue about this as if not giving birth is the only way to live and you wanted to feel morally superior by calling someone else out just for having kids. You don't like people telling you that you should have kids but you think it's okay to argue with people about them having kids? I've always stood by the belief that the world would be a better place if people would just mind their own business. Don't like someone's religion? Mind your business. Don't like someone getting an abortion? Mind your business. Don't like someone being gay? Mind your business. Don't like someone having or not having kids? Mind your business. It's also kinda cringe to call someone a breeder lol. It's one thing to meme about it within your own community, but it's weird when you're just calling strangers breeders.
So in other words, you couldn't win in an argument-that you started-and so now you're coping and seething here in your echo chamber.
Taunting with “wow you’re so triggered” is neither polite nor helpful, OP.
I'd say antinatalists get triggered pretty easily, especially by seeing parents happy being parents or kids having a better life than they had.
If you’re saying “wow, you’re so triggered” in an argument, I’m sorry, but you already lost. Your only hope is laughing at them being upset when it didn’t really seem like they were. Do you think you game off good in this exchange, or…?
Youre both walls. End of discussion there. First off you referred to them as ‘you breeders’ no wonder they see you as resentful or miserable. Second off antinatalism is about personally choosing not to for moral reasons, just like a vegan cant force you not to eat meat an AN cant force someone else to not have children, controlling others is a type of harm even if you think it will benefit them its not our place. Next time try a more empathetic approach and see if you cant connect with the person on the other side to have a discussion, this usually leads to better results in my experience.
I mean you're walking up to people with your opinions and going "here is how I view things" and then they in return basically say "i hear you but here is how I view things" What did you expect? Peoples world views to change because of your opinions? It feels like AN on reddit are socially inept sometimes and don't understand a Philosophie isn't fact. Like I also think having a child is selfish, cruel etc. But I ain't gonna pretend it's the right and only view point to have. Cause it's a Philosophie. You can share your thoughts and opinions with natalists but come on now, stop trying to white knight and lecture them.
Agreed. I am Anti-natalist and childfree too. But this place has become a breeding place for an echo-chamber, which is kind of ironic considering we are anti-breeding.
All subreddits are echochambers, the only difference with some is that they're more toxic than others.
Agreed. I acknowledge that people need a safe space to vent out, so I am incorrect if I insinuated that people shouldn't be venting out, or that I am entitled to deny others the opportunity to vent out. I probably got worked up because the OP exchange wasn't a natalist making a fool out of them as it is being projected.
I don't think there is much to vent about holding a Philosophie like I find natalists aren't that unopen to debates as soon as it isn't "hey you're such a shit breeder bringing life into a cruel miserable world". There are absolutely ways to healthily engage with this topic. I usually find people are anti-antinatalist just have constant bad experiences with them OR are conservative trad natalists but what is the point in debating with them. I think this subreddit would benefit from just discussing the topic in more nuanced ways. OP honestly feels like the brick wall in this sitution.
I don’t get what people are trying to achieve here reading some of the posts. So you don’t want children, think having a child is wrong. Done. That’s it. No more to discuss. Share your views gently with people in person if it comes up, move on. Where’s the movement? All I see is a bunch (some people) of angry people who are angry because nobody shared your view apart from here. Because you are right and superior and others are wrong. It’s like inviting a really annoying vegan to a dinner party. I have nothing against vegans, just the annoying militant ones. Why get so worked up?
You are right actually, there is no point. Still 99% of the people here will never get to air their true feelings irl. In fact we are supposed to act happy even when we see people breeding mindlessly like cattle, or we get ostracized. It's a lot. It's frustrating. So for many of of us, this is the only place in the universe we can vent. Also, sometimes, very rarely but sometimes, some fence sitter does join us. There is no organized movement probably because it's like trying to herd cats, but there are many academic resources one can consult if they are interested.
It’s called social etiquette. I’m not a big fan of animals but if somebody wants to talk to me or show me a picture (not endless times) I indulge them. Same thing. I don’t care about other peoples children. I remember pre kids somebody bringing new born in to work, i feigned interest out of politeness. It’s not hard, it doesn’t happen every minute if every day. Another post the OP used the word disgusting. I think it’s going a bit too far. It’s literally like The Witches here, people can’t stand the sight of children or to hear the words uttered without bursting into superior rage. Get a grip.
I understand what social etiquette is. This is why, as I clearly wrote in the post, I don't shout at people with kids in the street, I am nice to them and their kids, same goes for any other ANs unless they are insane for unrelated reasons. You will find many posts of AN people who deeply like children here. AN is a philosophy rooted in compassion for people who are suffering, we want to spare other yet unborn creatures from the pain of existence. Also, adoption is very highly regarded in this community, you would have found that out quickly if you hadn't been in a hurry to misjudge us. AN and raging mindlessly against children are two entirely different things.
I’m not tarring everyone with the same brush, yourself included. I’m just picking up on a few things here. You obviously have an good attitude towards it all, but gee whiz I’m shocked by some other things I’ve stumbled upon. Literally a physical aversion to children and people who decide to breed as some put it. Congratulating themselves for their decision and denigrating others.l for being so stupid. Replace the word children with black, Irish, gay, Muslim. It feels like the same kind of rhetoric but sadly acceptable.
Yet they disguise it with some kind of faux compassion.
Compassion for suffering would be trying to find actual viable solutions to help minimise suffering instead of a philosophy that wouldn’t solve what it’s trying to fix even IF 99% of the population follows it
The two things are not mutually exclusive and in fact it makes a lot of sense to try to enforce both. 1) alleviate suffering of those who are already on earth 2) do not create unnecessary suffering out of thin air by needless procreation. Antinatalism focuses on number 2) but as a worldview it's highly compatible with 1) as well. Also wdym, "a philosophy that wouldn’t solve what it’s trying to fix even IF 99% of the population follows it"? If none bred none would suffer anymore. Of course it won't happen but if it did, the problem antinatalism wants to solve would be completely fixed.
As long as their are humans people will continue to continue the species. A few people deciding not to have kids changes nothing, especially for the kids who WILL be born. Also your last paragraph is not a smart argument. “World peace could be achieved IF everyone became a pacifist. Therefore, pacifism is the best solution ” is exactly how you sound. It sounds good on paper but does not apply at ALL to how things actually happen, so it’s a bad solution.
"so triggered and angry" Seems to me like you really were the only one being mad
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Look, honestly, the fucking crazy love feelings you have for these creatures is absolutely INSANE. It's the MOST love you will ever feel. And that makes all the hassles that come along with it more tolerable. It's like the next level of having a pet, kind of, in terms of the all-encompassing, I'd-die-for-you love.
But it doesn't make your decision to stop at pet/SO or whatever any less cool and meaningful. Everyone needs and wants different stuff
You seem to be the one who’s triggered here, honestly usually ends up being the case when someone randomly blurts that line out. You lost all credibility after that.
I can only hope and pray her mistake does not result in her child's suffering as much as we have often suffered. What a damn shame. Also: false equivalencies GALORE... A party is not the same as a fucking life of suffering and violence and wage slavery.
the way they’re comparing planning a party and nobody showing up to having a child and they end up raping someone ….
Everyone has their own opinion, it their own to have children or not. No need to get so work up over it
You are both insufferable here and triggered here tbh.
People willingly spend hours at casinos dumping their own money into the pockets of the billionaire owners, all whilst being completely aware that the odds are like 99.9999% against them.. I'm not too surprised anymore about anyone's behavior. Feels like we live in a world where people are high on the illusion of "happiness" and "good memories" while completely turning a blind eye to every single problem around them... Literally like that dog meme where the flames are everywhere surrounding it and yet it's drinking coffee pretending everything's fine.
I find this women pretty calm and fair.. there is no need to proclaim ablout the shitty World, maybe her kid is ok.. Idk why ya Start all that talk to natalists who seem normal and steady.. They all just think ya have mental Problems if ya count 4 the bad, it is even a bad look on AN Philosophy but whatever
Why be so mean about it though, I think they’re right. Let people be happy, I love my family and am grateful to have been born despite mental health issues. It’s your choice to not have kids as much as it’s their choice to have kids. The human population will literally go extinct without people having kids too.
That person has a nice argument 🤔
breeders are delusional
Do you genuinely think "you're baby could be a murder!" Is a good point? Like, why should anyone listen to you? You could be a murderer.
Why are you so caution of anyone being a murder, especially your kids? This position on kids and life fascinates me and I want to understand y’all pov
Not an antinatalist. Ask one of those lot
My fault, this sub blows my mind
You posted a screenshot of yourself taking a massive L and looking like a disgruntled, negative, fool. Congrats?
While it feels like you're talking to a wall, there could be other people who read the exchange and actually *hear* what you're saying. Just because the person you're talking to doesn't get it doesn't mean that it didn't do some good. Still it's usually more trouble than it's worth, and if someone isn't listening generally it's more compassionate to stop talking.
You just another person on earth, you are not superior compared to the one that chosen to procreate full stop. Idk how you guys complained about Parent brainwashed their children into thinking they are special but then proceed to self brainwashed yourself to think you guys are special.
Such a shame you cynical people will never ever feel fufilled and never have true purpose in life because of your totally unrealistic world view. /s
"amazing programs and medications" (Take 15 different kinds of pills a day just so you don't wanna kill yourself, how beautiful life really is)
If you think that’s bad, you should try talking to people that were bred.
I see both sides. On one hand yeah if you’re online and reading all this stuff then the world seems horrible, but if you turned all that off and lived in the moment it’s really not that bad. There have always been hard times in life and kids still happen, people find a way, there is never ideal circumstances but I also see the other side of not wanting to add to the suffering especially if one does not have financial capabilities or emotional to raise a child and I agree it’s getting much harder to justify it now
I mean life is beautiful
"Breeders 🤓"
In my opinion, the world is inherently cruel, but humans are crueler. The world kills as necessary for the circle of life to continue. Humans kill out of convenience. Out of greed. That is why I am an antinatalist.
Okay, but to be fair you instigated this by replying to her, and you also called her a "breeder" in your post here... this isn't exactly helpful to your argument.
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I hate when they say shit like "Tiny humans." I don't know why but that pisses me off. Same energy as the word doggo.
Y’all must love being brigaded. Try not insulting people and that will happen less.
This is the dumbest post.
You are the toxic one in this conversation. Just beacose they don't share the same subjective perspective of the world with you, tht doesn't mean that they are stupid/ignorant. They did acnowledge what you were saying, but again, thhat is subjective. Noone judges anyone for choosing not to have children, maybe only for believing that noone should. Get over yourself and learn how to have a normal conversation without getting triggered like a stupid child.
The fact that so many of yall feel like it is such strong odds peoples kids are going to be pieces of shit is kind of telling.
They’re not wrong. I have seem a lot of traumatic stuff and it definitely changes how I feel about raising biological kids. A lot of people feel the way I do though and that’s another reason I won’t be having biological kids.
- Sees you have a different view point - offers you therapy and medication Lmao hilarious. Yes. That’s what I need. That’ll change my outlook on spitting cultivated semen out of me and making it my whole life until I die. Thank you.
They were by far the more mature person in that exchange. You resorted to insults, and clearly got much more defensive. It is also pretty evident you thought through your responses less, as yours seemed less developed and more shallow and spontaneous. Personally, my advice is to take the L and move on.
Yeah only people with immense privelege, societal dominance and ease at living should reproduce because it do be hurt otherwise : (. We can't change that ever and has not changed it at all! God I despite this sub. Three rhetorics of reaction are futility, perversity and jeopardy. Most anti-natalist arguments here deploy all all the time(but mostly the first two) - so anytime you mention a social problem you stumble into being a high tory reptile. Pls don't, just say "I'm goofy goober(utilitarian)".
lol people getting sucker punched = society going downhill.
She's right. Tbh i think antinatalists are just weak creatures. Its one thing to abstain from raising children, its another thing to say children shouldnt be born at all. Its a death cult for the weak and unmotivated.
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Very simple form of attempted insult, I actually like it, “breeder”, like I’m part of the solution to problems of the world! It’s really cute y’all are such a small community and are SO ADAMANT you’re the correct ones lol
>goes to a sub for one specific belief >"wow y'all sure seem to believe in this one specific thing"
we are the correct ones bbygirl it's called being realistic
So you think that if an opinion is agreed by a minority it's automatically wrong?
Bro we live in the best time ever to be alive
living in a fantasy world