Anti-Natalism - A solution for ending materialistic human suffering

[zurew]

46 minutes ago, Something Funny said:

There is an anti-natalist subreddit with over 200k people on it. You are welcome to ask there how many of them are pro killing people.

Its not about being pro killing people , its often times an unrecognized entailment of the view.

Its compatible with you having a principled stance against all consent violations.

 

If you think that violating consent in any type of way is fundamentally so wrong that it overwrites everything else, then it necessarily leads to reducing all consent violations to 0.

And the answer to your earlier question is that under my personal view its wrong, but not because all type of consent violations are fundamentally wrong (you do violate consent every time you do any type of action where you dont 100% know that the other being is okay with whatever action you do), but because when it comes to things specific to sex, that type of consent violation is fundamentally wrong under my view.

24 minutes ago, Something Funny said:

Is consent not necessary if the experience you are about to give another person is perceived as good by you?

No its not necessary, again its only necessary under certain specific scenarios like sex.  Pragmatically you wont find any anti-natalist who live up to this. When you ask a question without asking me whether I will be okay with it or not, you are potentially violating my consent and dragging me through and experience that I didnt consent to.

Edited yesterday at 12:23 PM by zurew

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

2 hours ago, Ishanga said:

The world the way it is now cannot sustain 10+B ppl, not with Consumerism as the basis of our Economies, that is for sure, and is why we have the problems we have.  If People were more natural, didn't need things outside of themselves to feel fulfilled, etc then maybe yeah we could sustain a population that large, but not today.. The tech created won't help either if the present economic system stays the same as well as the mindset and general consciousness level of the avg person!

In nature, all species either grow or they slowly (or abruptly) die. Human species is no different. If you just let the economy and humanity stagnate, in reality we would all start to slowly suffocate and humanity would descend into idiocracy

[Something Funny]

@zurew when is consent necessary? How do you decide that? 

First of all, even in cases like asking questions, it is often considered impolite without consent. 

Irl, it's common to ask "can I ask you a question?" before aaking something importabt or personal.

On a forum, this dynamic is different because of the format.

Secondly, you could say that whether something requires consent, depends on an impact it has on a person's life.

You asking someone an inappropriate question will have a much lower impact on their life then you forcefully having sex with them.

All things that have a potential to seriously impact your life, require consent, even legally speaking. 

It's hard to find a more impactful thing than being born.

 

[zurew]

10 minutes ago, Something Funny said:

when is consent necessary? How do you decide that? 

I dont have it formalized in any way, again all I can tell you is that If I reflect on it -  I intuitively know that Im okay with violating consent in a bunch of scenarios , because I care about certain things more than just consent.

10 minutes ago, Something Funny said:

Irl, it's common to ask "can I ask you a question?" before aaking something importabt or personal.

On a forum, this dynamic is different because of the format.

Yes , but you still go for it, right? If you would be against it in a principled way, then you wouldn't risk it, but you are okay with making the risk of violating consent in a bunch of scenarios.

10 minutes ago, Something Funny said:

Secondly, you could say that whether something requires consent, depends on an impact it has on a person's life.

You can go with this, but this goes back to what I said from the beginning. You are not against violating consent in a principled way and if we go back to the question I asked, then the answer is obviously "its okay to have children in a world where there is 100% guaranteed bliss and 0% chance for any suffering."

And from then on, the talk isnt about "its wrong because you violated consent" but "its wrong because of the negative stuff you put the kid through".

Edited yesterday at 12:38 PM by zurew

[zazen]

26 minutes ago, Something Funny said:

34 minutes ago, zazen said:

A non-vegan diet grew our brains big enough to even platform enough conciousness to contemplate eating non-vegan to begin with.

Voluntarily going vegan and depriving the brain of certain nutrients on a long enough time horizon may devolve our brains - shrinking the very vessel for conciousness and “compassion”.

I don't even feel like spending my energy arguing with you after reading this bro-science.

So our big beautiful brains that are energy hungry developed over millions of years by eating grass and nuts? The building blocks of which can't be obtained from a vegan diet deficient in choline, DHA etc. We can live as vegans but didn't evolve from it. We went from butcher to bhudda.

Vegans can maintain our current brains only with meticulous planning and supplementation - even then, some nutrients can't be supplemented due to bioavailability. A lot of issues and sup-optimal intake of nutrients takes years to show up as they chip away at our vitality. To do this in one life time is fair, but across generations it could have consequences unless some breakthroughs happen.

Forget that side of the discussion and answer this then:

34 minutes ago, zazen said:

But did they consent to non-existence? Did they consent to non-being? There’s no subject to consent with or not to being with.

Can non-existence be consented to and chosen? There's nobody to be asked. Consent is a relationship between two beings with the capacity for it - not between being and non being. Ethics apply within the realm of existence.

Edited yesterday at 12:42 PM by zazen

[Something Funny]

@zurewyou are right, I am not against violating consent in this kind of black and white way.

I am also not against murder, in a principled way, by that logic. I am okay with killing a person in a bunch of scenarios. 

In case with childbirth, I think consent is important to consider.

 

[Something Funny]

@zazen get your epistemology right, then we can talk.

[zurew]

3 minutes ago, Something Funny said:

@zurewyou are right, I am not against violating consent in this kind of black and white way.

I am also not against murder, in a principled way, by that logic. I am okay with killing a person in a bunch of scenarios. 

In case with childbirth, I think consent is important to consider.

Btw I agree with the general sentiment that this type of moral philosophy is pointing to.

I think consent and suffering are very important things to think through and reflect on.

 

And I also agree that most people want children for selfish reasons.

[Something Funny]

@zurew ok, then we mostly agree on this, I think

[MightyMind]

you sound like the Canadian government. "Out of compassion, instead of offering you real treatment to deal with your pain, how about MAID? Out of compassion you drown in your own fluids but then you'll be dead  yaaa" 

[zurew]

50 minutes ago, Something Funny said:

@zurew ok, then we mostly agree on this, I think

Yeah it seems that you had a different thing in mind when it comes to the label "anti-natalist", but I think when it comes to moral-intuitions we probably align on most things.

And I also agree that people downplay suffering. Like why the fuck not think through what you will most probably put your future kid through? I think you can easily push hardcore pro-natalists with illness hypotheticals.

Like if it would be the case that you knew with 100% chance that your kid will have down-syndrome with the combination of cancer and being crippled and having schizophrenia and needing to breath through a breathing tube for the rest of his/her life and we can stack any other horrible things on the top of this - would  you still feel okay with having that kid? Like really? 

[zazen]

1 hour ago, Something Funny said:

@zazen get your epistemology right, then we can talk.

If it’s so obviously wrong then point it out.

Again - did the non-being consent to not being?

Epistemology presupposes existence. If epistemology is about how we know - there must be a knower to know in the first place.

We can’t know how a non-existent subject knows or consents, or claim we know about what their preference is - to be or not to be?

Which is why consent is reserved for those existing and capable of it. For example, even in existence - we don’t demand consent from babies because they aren’t capable yet.

The logic simply goes: suffering is bad, thus to end suffering we eliminate the sufferer.

A conversation can be had about suffering, but that’s different to consent.

Edited yesterday at 02:08 PM by zazen

[zurew]

24 minutes ago, zazen said:

If it’s so obviously wrong then point it out.

Your line of thinking only works in abortion arguments where the termination happens before the being can devevlop sentience. So of course, with there being no sentience  - no violation of consent happens , but if its entailed that it will be proctected and nurtured until it develops sentience, then consent violations necessarily come up.

This is the difference - its wrong to use heroin when you are pregnant and you have the intention to have/keep the kid vs its not wrong to use heroin when you are pregnant and have the intention to abort the fetus before it can develop sentience.

Edited yesterday at 02:20 PM by zurew

[Staples]

What's so bad about suffering from time to time? You'd be such a snowflake if you had never suffered.

[UnbornTao]

1 minute ago, Staples said:

What's so bad about suffering from time to time? You'd be such a snowflake if you had never suffered.

Or a semi-god.

Nothing intrinsically bad about it. 

[Staples]

That's it! No more penis in vagina! The level of suffering is too damn high!

 

[Emerald]

5 hours ago, Something Funny said:

He is talking about ending suffering so I think he means humans dying out completely. So your points about economy or ending up like South Korea don't really matter anymore from that perspective. 

 

My point is that it's a fringe ideology that won't be adopted universally or by anyone who would actually want to have kids.

So, the ideology of antinatalism is only adopted by people who already didn't want to have kids as a post hoc justification for not having kids in a world that pressures and pesters them to have kids.

Literally no one who wants to have children is stopping themselves from procreating because of antinatalism or because of some abstract notion that "procreating is unethical"... which is something the majority of people don't agree with.

So, the idea that human beings are all going to adopt the ideology of antinatalism and stop reproducing until there are no humans is a moot point, as it would never happen.

If hypothetically (and this probably wouldn't happen either, as I don't think literally anyone who wants children would be swayed by antinatalist rhetoric towards not having them), a sizable minority of people started to adopt an antinatalist philosophy and stopped having kids, what would happen is that our birth rates would fall and it would cause a lot of suffering over the coming generations because we'd have an aging population with fewer younger people to prop the economy up.

That's the most realistic result of this ideology.

So, if the attempt at switching to an antinatalist ideology succeeds as best it possibly can, it would just lead to a lower birth rate... and not the human race dying out entirely. And having a steep decline in the birth rate would lead to a lot of suffering. 

So, it's a moot point.

[Basman]

Certain aspects of anti-natalism are true, like most would agree to not concieve children under uncertain conditions or if you can't give a child the love it deserves (because you genuinely don't want kids for example). IE. children should be born with the best shot at life, and falling short of that is arguably irresponsible. 

Where anti-natilism falls short on my opinion is that it is biased against suffering while discounting pleasure. It treats suffering as more core than pleasure. It is inherently nihilistic, negative and even deterministic to a certain extent. Why is it that just because you suffer that then life is not worth living? Most people want to live even if they suffer, so what is the problem? There's a misanthropic quality to how anti-natalist tend to treat the topic as well. The human experience is treated as reprehensible because it is not perfect. It is a view that the average person would find extreme and strange. 

The underlying issue is that suffering is conditional and not a constant. It is also a matter of degree. You should avoid unnecessary suffering, which is anti-natalisms strongest point in a generel sense, being conscious of one's choices, especially relative to conception. But suffering is just part of life. It doesn't define it. Anti-natalism is a bit edgy in that sense.

I feel that the current wave of anti-natalism is in part to being more informed with the internet but also due to economic exclusion and feeling pessimistic about the future. 

Edited yesterday at 04:30 PM by Basman

[Something Funny]

@Emerald It doesn't matter how many people adopt it. I don't care about that. You are basically evaluating a philosophy by its popularity. What matters is if it's true.

Is it true that having kids is unethical? I don't believe it is, but not because "it's a fringe ideology that will be ignored by people of low development".
 

28 minutes ago, Emerald said:

If hypothetically (and this probably wouldn't happen either, as I don't think literally anyone who wants children would be swayed by antinatalist rhetoric towards not having them), a sizable minority of people started to adopt an antinatalist philosophy and stopped having kids, what would happen is that our birth rates would fall and it would cause a lot of suffering over the coming generations because we'd have an aging population with fewer younger people to prop the economy up.

That's the most realistic result of this ideology.

So, if the attempt at switching to an antinatalist ideology succeeds as best it possibly can, it would just lead to a lower birth rate... and not the human race dying out entirely. And having a steep decline in the birth rate would lead to a lot of suffering. 

Yeah, and if they abolished slavery in feudal societies, they would also collapse, plunging into chaos. Abolishing slavery = more suffering. 

This shows the issue with our current economical system, not antinatalism.

 

[Emerald]

5 hours ago, Something Funny said:

In what ways does it ring hollow?

The main point of anti-natalism is that it's ethically wrong to have children because:

1. You are doing it for selfish reasons like: I want to have a family to make MYSELF happy, I want someone to take care of ME when I AM old, WE need to keep the economy going. None of this is about a child you are about to bring into that world. You are just using them as a means to an end, like a tool basically. 

2. You cannot guarantee that the person you are about to give birth to will be happy to be alive or if they will hate it and suffer. At worst you don't care about how they will feel and if they will enjoy the experience, and at best you are making a gamble with their life, hoping that it will end up being a positive thing. 

3. A child cannot consent to being born, and giving birth without consent is unethical according to anti-natalism. Taking two of the above points into an account, what makes you think that it's okay to make a gamble with someone's life, using them to fulfill your own selfish needs without consent?

Do you have any valid counter-arguments to those points?

In my opinion, you can only rebuke them by using spirituality. Like: "Everybody has a soul and its the soul that decides to get born" or "You are God imagining yourself being born".

Or by saying that morality is relative and that nothing is really wrong. So you can use children selfishly, create suffering, and give birth without consent, and there is nothing wrong with it. Just like there is nothing wrong with genociding people.

I don't think there are any valid counter-arguments from a regular, human perspective. So how is it hollow? Anti-natalism is more advanced than most people can handle. Usually, if there is a critique of it, it's a critique from below.

It rings hollow because most people don't agree with the idea the idea that procreating is unethical. And everyone has variations to their ethical compass.

I see having children as ethically neutral and in the realm of personal sovereignty. And some people see not having children as unethical.

And even if someone does theoretically agree that having children is unethical, the desire to have children is so meaningful to people that they'd absolutely be willing to break from that abstract idea that "procreation is unethical" in order to have kids.

Like, if you really wanted to have kids, you would drop antinatalism like a hot potato.

Not to mention the fact that having children comes from having sex... and people like to have sex. And there are tons of "oops!" babies that come into existence even though they weren't explicitly planned on. 

So, even if everyone got on board with the antinatalist ideology and was in agreement that having kids is unethical and defied their own deep desire to have children to be "ethical" in that way... there would still be "Oops!" babies.

The only way to actually enact an antinatalist ideology would be to forcibly sterilize everyone against their will... which would bring us into eugenics territory

But here are my counter-arguments...

1. Every decision you make... including the decision to donate to charity... is one that you make because it feels right to you or makes you feel good. There is no such thing as a selfless decision. And having children is no different. But that doesn't mean that you see your children as a mere tool of your happiness. Good parenting is a one-way street where you give care and they receive it to grow into themselves as people. The benefit that I get is that my children are really cool people to be around and it's amazing to watch them grow... and I'm glad to know them as people and to have them as my family. They are very much wanted by me... but their existence doesn't belong to me.

2. You don't know that the person you bring into this world won't value their life tremendously either. And you rob so many of them a chance to live and exist and experience if (hypothetically) society adopts an anti-natalist ideology. I am glad that my parents procreated and had me. I'm quite sure that my kids are also glad that I procreated and had them... as they don't wish not to exist. Most people prefer to live and want to continue existing... even if they encounter suffering in their lives. Most people do not attempt suicide or commit suicide. So, you are setting up a situation where people who would want to exist are disallowed from existence for the sake of an ideology.

3. A non-existent person cannot consent to existence (if we look from an Earthly perspective). So, that is a moot point. You have to exist to consent. Consenting only happens in the domain of existence. So, you cannot consent to existence. Therefore, you are simply acting as the ultimate authority and assume that everyone who exists is non-consenting... and you project your own ideas onto them and rescind consent for them. You assume their no... when perhaps they wanted to give an enthusiastic yes to life. Instead, you project an unpopular ideology onto them that assumes that they are forced to exist against their will. It's like stealing something precious from a sentient being by assuming that that sentient being doesn't want to exist.

Now, of course, there are plenty of potential people who don't get born into existence. And I see that as being the sovereign prerogative of a given person as to whether or not they want to bring life into the world. But because you are saying, "Let's not bring people into this world because they might not want to exist.", my rebuttal is "What about the majority of people who do want to exist? Maybe 5% of people who are brought into existence, don't want to exist. But why deny the 95% of people who do want to exist for the sake of the 5%?"

But ultimately, antinatalism rings hollow because the only people who agree with it are people who are looking for a post hoc justification for not having kids.

The people who believe it's unethical to not have children tend to lord their perceived moral superiority over those who choose not to have kids... and badger them about "being selfish" and hounding them to have kids.

So, as a rebuttal, those who don't want to have children use the antinatalist ideology to be like, "Actually, I'm the morally superior one... and you're being selfish for having kids."

Almost no one else agrees with antinatalism. And even if they do, if having kids is meaningful to them, they will still have kids.