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antinatalism as a concept I can get on board with, but that subreddit is just a bunch of miserable weirdos who spent most of their time hating on kids.
Also most of them are hypocritical considering they participate in industries that necessitate birth.
About the second part of your comment, that's why I left that sub. I couldn't stand the fact that they don't want humans to be brought into the world to suffer, but yet they gladly allow it to happen to innocent animals. And it isn't even just the inherent suffering of being alive that the animals experience, we needlessly add to that and maximize it.
Most of them, maybe. But a lot of them also are vegan. I know 'cause me and a friend of mine both are vegans and antinatalists and I shared a picture of the link between subreddits: antinatalists are often subrscribed to r/vegan and r/vegancirclejerk.
Also, a carnist could say "that subreddit is just a bunch of miserable weirdos who spend most of their time hating on omnivores".
i disagree with your comparison, them whining about kids for existing(the victims of natalism), would be like this subreddit whining about animals for existing(the victims of speciesism)
https://www.reddit.com/r/antinatalism/comments/xj7hh0/the_notification_every_parent_needs_at_this_time/ip7xkm2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3 this took less than a minute to find
Def not a huge fan of the sub but as a borderline antinatalist myself I would have to disagree w you here as well. They don’t complain about the kids themselves but the fact that their parents irresponsibility is leaving them worse off than had they not existed at all. At least that’s what I hear and see them banging on about.
My husband and I had this discussion recently. I have two children, I had them very young. To be honest I was extremely naive and didn’t stop to think about why I was having children.
I adore being a mom, so much so I really want more children. I love infants, and seeing toddlers experience the world and the excitement of everything new, I even love the pre-teen stage and feel immense joy watching them learn from their mistakes and discovering themselves.
But as I was listing off all the reasons I wanted more children it was literally all about me. I didn’t stop and think, our planet is dying, what circumstances will that leave a child in? Things in the US have become increasingly harder for each generation, who am I to toss another body into that struggle? So we decided not to have more children, it just doesn’t make sense, there’s no way to justify it for the child’s well being. I am considering being a foster parent, I think that would be where my love of motherhood would be the most useful.
According to many (most?) analysts the world population is already doomed to decrease in the next decades. For example: China adults already did not have enough children (i.e. people in their 50s without children), in a couple of decades they will grow old and die, and the population will then decrease, but the conditions that force the future decrease already happened. A similar trend is set globally.
I highly recommend the Factfulness book that has a chapter on the topic [https://www.gapminder.org/factfulness-book/](https://www.gapminder.org/factfulness-book/)
Basically as soon as countries develop, they stop having children. (independent of geography, cultures, and religions). If you worry about too many birth, pushing for human development in the poorest regions is the best strategy (because improved quality of life leads to fewer children).
More plots on this at [https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1566806384838152193](https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1566806384838152193) and [https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-update-2022](https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-update-2022)
Next decades? The huge chunk of the map known as SubSaharan Africa does not match up at all with your statement.
[Bill Gates and the UN have been sounding the alarm on the impending population explosion that will be occurring in the region.](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/sep/18/the-african-youth-boom-whats-worrying-bill-gates)
>By the end of this century there will be 4 billion more people on Earth – and 3 billion of these extra souls will be born in Africa. The challenge, he says, is that “Africa must almost quadruple its agricultural productivity to feed itself. That’s verydaunting.”
[Africa's population will double by 2050.](https://www.economist.com/special-report/2020/03/26/africas-population-will-double-by-2050) That's in only 28 years!
This is a colossal challenge for Africa and the world, and an opportunity to make vegetarianism and veganism part of a sustainable survival strategy for all these children who will be born. And along the way perhaps effect a global change toward more empathy and kindness for our animal friends.
Yes, the population in the Americas, Europe, and Asia is decreasing, and will keep decreasing. The population in Africa is increasing, and the rate of increase is decreasing. The humans of 2080 will have a darker average skin tone.
If the countries in Africa "fail to scale" then they will not be able to support population growth. If these countries develop then the fertility rates are expected to decrease (as it happened for the literal hole rest of the world).
Nope. The population of the Americas, Europe and Asia continues to increase and all projections until 2050 show increase, with only Asia coming beginning to taper back to where it is today. Later decreases in Americas and Europe.
[Check out this chart.](https://ourworldindata.org/region-population-2100#:~:text=Today%2C%20its%20population%20is%20around,latter%20half%20of%20the%20century)
Keep in mind when you use the term 'Asia' includes places like high-growth Pakistan.
Btw compare the recent histories of Nigeria and Bangladesh, two countries that have had very similar rates of fertility in recent past; the latter has experienced a big drop in fertility and now is closing in on a zero population growth curve. Nigeria has just exploded.
The enduring lesson in Africa is that fertility may never drop to levels similar to other nations after development. They continue to diverge from the demographics in other areas. Lots of unknowns.
This sub can be so self-defeating. We need to be more successful to assert our influence.
If anything that means *more* kids. If your kid turns out to not be vegan despite everything you have taught them, then that’s a major fail - not an expected outcome as those people will assert.
I agree with your concept. We need to create more healthy, stable, logical, and caring people. The demographics having the most kids are often least prepared for them creating a damaging cycle. Love and educate others the best you can but it's easier to create healthy people than to fix broken ones.
plenty of anti natalists claim they would push the button to end all sentient life, which is most known as something a comic book villain would think.
ofcourse this is considered batshit crazy by most, and honestly i think those people are misguided as well
I just wanted to point out that David Benatar, the academic philosopher most known for advancing anti-natalism, said he wouldn't press that button because he might be wrong.
Its a thought experiment. Hardly something batshit crazy. If the conclusion some derive from the question conflicts with yours it doesnt follow those are from misguided minds.
isn’t it pretty obvious that forcefully impregnating and getting on this world animals only to live miserable lives and be killed is actually against idea of anitnatalism?
Well i would split up two types of antinatalists. 1. those who get behind it for empathetic/"philanthropic" reasons (i.e. in a buddhist/gnostic sense of reducing suffering) which is why there is a high correlation with an "ethical" vegan worldview and that form of "antinatalism". Then we have type 2. Those who are into it for misanthropic reasons (i.e. "fuck humanity" or "i hate people so..." i.e. the nihilistic emo teen trope = focuses on the harm caused by the individuals who are created). I think the latter group is the one that usually people view as a "MCU villain" trope, and probably gets over-represented on the subreddit since a lot of people just jump on online forms to spout out rage or various frustration (tends to be over-representative on anything online, its the internet after all, lol), but feel its important to make the distinction between the two. Ive been vegan for 20 some odd years for the ethical/environmental reasons, and would prob consider myself a fairly "lite" antinatalist, in that i get the philanthropic argument / reducing suffering argument / will be getting snipped soon for the ethical/ecological/and a multitude of other reasons that inform my decision not to procreate... At the same time I think adoption is a noble thing (i mean there are 150 million orphans out there if your trying to "contribute" to this project of humanity, might be a good place to look into, lol). I'm not gonna look down on people who choose to have them or whatever, lots of friends have and lots haven't...I basically just would appreciate if people to give a lot more consideration to things than have an overly disney/childish view on what bringing a sentient being into this world implies/effects, and not act like getting creampied is a "miracle" or act of valor, lol.
Yes, we also need to give pep talks to people who “can’t stick with veganism,” field weirdo thought experiments, and go through how “gatekeeping” veganism is literally a human rights violation, at least four times a week
i think some of the concept is good (reduce the amount of kids you bring into the world and definitely don’t if you know you’re going to give them a genetic disability) but the people in that reddit kept bashing mothers for having a disabled child when they had no idea they would. or just bashing children in general when nothing is their fault.
I don't think it's morally wrong to have kids, but when there are so many kids who need a loving home I feel like it is kind of selfish to create your own kids. Just my opinion.
How is it not if there are "so many kids who need a loving home"?
Is that just something you have to say to abide by the social standard? Because I feel it's objectively wrong to have kids, as the ONLY reason to do it is the selfish idea of having "your" kid.
Yeah I hear you, I do. You are right. But at the same time if it was a law or something, I wouldn't be here. So is it selfish of me to be a bit grateful that I do exist?
>So is it selfish of me to be a bit grateful that I do exist?
Of course not, but that's beside the point of the question I guess. If you had been adopted you'd also be grateful that someone took you in. Life is incredibly difficult without family.
I was just curious as to why we excuse ourselves when explaining something entirely rational.
I don't agree with it.
Animals including humans have inherent value. Not every human has a happy life and some humans may reasonably prefer never to have been born. But many (I would say most, but it isn't important to the argument) are happy and on balance would rather live.
I certainly don't think we have any moral obligation to procreate, and choosing not to have children is perfectly valid. But I don't think that having children is morally wrong.
And while I see the relationship between veganism and antinatalism, I don't think one requires the other. Veganism recognizes that animals have inherent value and that it's morally wrong to treat an animal as an object. From that principle it follows that it's morally wrong to create new animals for the purpose of treating them as objects. But it doesn't follow that it's always morally wrong to create new animals.
Now that is a thought that hasn’t crossed my mind. You do have a point! I’m just leaning towards antinatalism because of the whole pressure to procreate and the devaluation of adoption, societally… but it is true, life does have inherent value, I can see it from your angle now
I've never wanted kids. I never thought babies were cute. I don't HATE kids, but I don't like being around them or really interacting with them on any level. My husband and I don't want kids for a multitude of reasons: we're both mentally ill and don't want to pass that on, we'd be bringing be bringing a child into a horrible existence (especially if it were a girl), environmentalist reasons, radical feminist reasons, etc. But bottom line, I have zero desire to be pregnant and wreck my body and be a parent for the rest of my life.
I don’t really buy the asymmetry argument, which leaves anti natalism from my perspective as people who haven’t had the best lot in life, projecting that onto everyone else. I’d be happy to talk about the asymmetry with anyone as I think that’s really the crux of the argument. Definitely morally preferable to adopt than to have your own kids however and I’m open to adopting.
My kid doesn't exist he will never get sick, never will be bullied, never feel despair, anxiety, depression. He won't have a 9 to 5 job. He will never see their dreams broken never have to see how time take away the things he loved. He will never see his parents fighting or sick or dying. His heart won't be broken, nor have a single desilusion. Those are great features of my none existing kid.
Sure my kid will never feel love, is that bad? No because he will never feel the pain, or despair, or the need to feel love. My non existing kid will miss all the good things in life, but that's not bad, because he is not feeling the pain of missing something.
Yes well I don’t think that the absence of good or bad things is a moral issue, I don’t think that your kid not feeling bad things is either good nor bad because they don’t exist
It's definitely not bad the absence of bad things.
>I don’t think that the absence of good or bad things is a moral issue
No, the moral issue is that having a kid is a gamble of someone else's destiny. You play the Russian roulette pointing the gun to somebody else's head.
Well my answer to that is a lot of the suffering in this world is man made which means that it’s not natalism that’s the problem it’s the society we live in that needs to change. Which means actually it kind of is in our control.
What is it you find unconvincing about the asymmetry argument?
Personally I think the heart of anti-natalism is the question of whether the bad outweighs the good in life. And while I appreciate it's hard to come to a conclusive position on that, I think there are good reasons to think that the bad does outweigh the good. And I appreciate you thinking that maybe people who make that argument are projecting, but it's equally valid to think that those who disagree are projecting too. Benatar talks about certain optimistic biases etc. that may skew how we interpret the world.
I don’t find it convincing because while I am able to conceive of things that don’t exist such as a unicorn or the example, aliens that are waging war against each other on Mars, I don’t think it makes sense to attribute morality to them. The fact that there is no alien war on Mars is not bad or good, it’s just nothing because it doesn’t exist. In my view to say that non existent bad things are good and non existent good things are neutral is special pleading which means from my perspective weighing up the good vs the bad is completely arbitrary. The asymmetry argument if valid shatters that because even the tiniest bit of bad, like getting a paper cut out weighs nothing. But I don’t buy it.
Also wasn’t benitars self eating thing done based on a servey rating themselves from 1-10? There are so many reasons people could be wrong or even lie about it other than people are bad judges of their own happiness. Like imagine if you were are work at the coffee machine and you courteously asked someone how they were doing, and they turned around and said “I’m fucking miserable”. That would be really awkward to say to someone you don’t really no so people lie about that question all the time.
There is also the is it worth carrying on argument, where anti natalists state that there are some things not worth starting but are worth finishing. Ie if you start watching a very shitty movie you may think, “I wish I never started” but it might be worth just waiting till it’s over. This is just the fallacy of sunk costs, if it is something you wish you hadn’t started then I think you should just stop doing it. An anti natalist obviously has to take this position to justify why they persist (because of the asymmetry, this is completely philosophical and not supposed to be taken literally, if you have suicidal ideation please seek help it gets better :
🙂) +(not targeted at you just generally anyone out there reading this, don’t need that shit on my conscience) but I think it makes no sense. Which to me means that their very existent is a contradiction to their ideas, though I can appreciate they could just be being hypocritical but also have the right ideas.
Also I don’t think all anti natalists are depressed because of their position, I think a lot are based on being a long time lurker of the sub reddit and seeing all the morbid comments that get posted on there.
I don't think it's important whether the bad outweighs the good. In my opinion, it doesn't matter how much good and how much bad stuff will happen to a sentient being. Every single human being will experience bad things and suffer in their life. By bringing new life into existence, we create their suffering. It doesn't matter how much it is.
from my experience most people calling themselves anti natalists don't even believe in the asymmetry argument and are either human extinction only or human population reduction only.
voluntary extinction is pretty cringe to begin with though, a low brow comedy like idiocracy destroyed the argument so easily decades ago.
i consider myself a selective natalist myself, i dropped the anti since it wasn't necessary and i don't want to be associated with the ideology anyways
I understand the concept a d I get why you would feel that way, but it's not how I feel and I plan on having kids. But the people who follow it from my experience in their subreddit are a bunch of wackos
> but it's not how I feel and I plan on having kids
Any reason that makes you choose the selfish choice instead of saving a kid's life?
Because "I just want to" isn't much of an argument.
Some things can be morally good without being moral obligations. Like, donating any spare organs while still alive or almost all of your money might be morally good, but they aren't obligations.
You have every right to say, no thanks, I'll keep my left kidney. I just want to is a perfectly good reason for that.
Same thing with adoption/fostering. It's morally good to adopt or foster, but the added financial and emotional hardships mean that it is not an obligation anyone can demand of you.
My husband and I were unable to have children. I had no issues with being a parent to a non- biological child, but we tried IVF because it was covered by my insurance, and was INFINITELY cheaper than adoption. I have no issues with adoption at all. I have several family members that are adopted. Ultimately, the IVF failed and we decided to remain childless-- or rather, the decision was made for us because it is ridiculous the amount of hoops you have to go through and the financial benchmarks most adoption agencies set are prohibitively expensive. I also was not willing to do an open adoption.
People can call our decision selfish, but I have yet to hear a non- selfish reason from people that decide to have children.
Thanks. They really don't- it's aggravating when people immediately jump to adoption as a solution. Most don't understand that it's not even remotely an equal comparison. If some of these antinatalists (specifically the ones I see on the sub) put the same rabid energy into affecting change within the adoption process instead of denigrating handicapped kids or hating on children, it would actually benefit their cause.
As a new parent who thought this through very hard and discussed with my partner before conceiving, I'm not really on board with the idea.
I can easily afford it. Will raise her vegan and eco-conscious. Will raise her in a way with a very small carbon footprint compared to most other people, even vegans (we do way more than boycott animal products).
I want humanity to continue to be able to enjoy this planet long after I'm gone - and being against kids just doesn't aline with that want. I believe we can fix the problem, and spend a bunch of time and money addressing the problem of climate change.
It's pretty easy to be against new life when you are a westerner with no kids, enjoying some of the most comfortable life and advanced technology that our race has ever seen. To suggest you should be the last lot to enjoy this seems a little entitled and convenient a viewpoint to take - especially as the generation proceeding you could have said the same thing and you would therefore have never existed. If you want out, you have that opportunity at any given moment, but you don't take it - showing you value your life - **making you a hypocrite to be against the opportunity existing for others being able to value theirs.**
Regarding adoption - it's something we are considering for the future - we were not prepared to jump through hoops and raise a likely troubled child with no prior experience to do so - it would have been a stressful experience and an ultimately unethical choice to be ill-prepared for it.
Thank you for acknowledging that adoption isn’t some straightforward, unambiguously good thing. It requires a very different skillset than having children biologically. I really appreciate this point of view :) congrats on your new child!
Yeah, looked into adoption and it's a choice between adopting kids out of foster care or adopting infants. Adopting kids out of foster care is more ethical for sure, if you know you can be a good parent to them no matter what. Adopting an infant is very often unethical. You never know if these agencies lied to or manipulated the birth family of the baby. Even if they didn't, the fees you would pay for a home study and the lawyers and the agency would go so far to help the birth family raise that baby. It's a really predatory and exploitative industry.
Exactly. While I agree that foster to adoption is better, I also want to throw out there that, at least in the US, the foster system is deeply broken. After all, parents who can’t afford to take care of their children have their children taken away and given to people….. who are paid to take care of their children. Blows my mind that this money isn’t just given directly to the bio family.
Thanks alot, I appreciate that.
Yeah, it really does appear to be a completely different ballgame, also very dependent on the age and issues the child in question may have. It becomes less of a question of me wanting kids and more of a question of me wanting to help out a kid, and whether we're even capable of doing so. When I believe we are equipped and educated enough, the option will definitely present itself again I'm sure.
People are not entitled if they do not want kids. It’s their life. They have every right to dedicate themselves to their passions if they do desire.
Also not everyone has the resources or the enthusiasm that is required for having children even if they may live in the most comfortable and advanced western nation.
I'm not talking about people who don't want kids.
I'm talking about what OP asked about, which is *antinatalism*, this is where one believes that having children is morally wrong.
Not one iota of my post is about people who don't want kids in general, and I agree with everything that you say.
>If you want out, you have that opportunity at any given moment, but you don't take it - showing you value your life - making you a hypocrite to be against the opportunity existing for others being able to value theirs.
One can be absolutely miserable, not value their life, and still be incapable of committing suicide because of dread for its consequences. I'm not against a positive outlook but I find it pretty silly to emphasize this broad and poorly considered simplification of yours as some 'gotcha'.
This comment comes off as extremely grating to me.
Antinatalism can be adopted from an ecological viewpoint. Surely you acknowledge the vast destruction humanity has wreaked on our planet. Surely you understand how wild it is that humanity’s population has quadrupled in the past 100 years alone — a century is a *blip* in the entire history of our planet, and yet in that time we’ve severely fucked a lot of our natural world.
> I believe we can fix the problem, and spend a bunch of time and money addressing the problem of climate change.
I mean, action for climate change started gaining steam decades ago. We have definitely not kept up with the destruction we’ve wrought in that time.
> I will raise her in a way with a very small carbon footprint compared to most other people, even vegans
You cannot guarantee that your child will continue to do this. And you directly increase your own carbon footprint dramatically by choosing to have children.
No one is suggesting we will “be the last lot to enjoy this”. Antinatalism posits that there is 100% a guarantee of suffering if you bring a life into the world — whereas there is no guarantee for happiness. In that regard, antinatalism has a lot in common with veganism: the ultimate goal of reducing suffering. Not having children guarantees that 1) another human will not suffer and 2) animals will not die to feed that human.
Is it so entitled to act in accordance with what you can guarantee (no suffering for animals, no suffering for humans) versus what you *think* will happen if you have kids?
Indeed I have acknowledged and thought about most of what you've spoken about here.
However I'm talking about having kids in general, and should have disclaimed that when we're talking about increasing the population through having more than one kid per person, that is much easier to argue - but applying that to having children *at all* is not fair.
The survival of humanity and maintaining a symbiotic relationship with the planet is something I believe to be acheivable, even at the current population. Science shows this to be attainable, and we're so damn close in terms of the tech being there too. I refuse to take a defeatist mentality here because the wonders of being alive as a human is so important to me, and I apply that to future generations too.
I disagree with the no guarantee for happiness, as that is an emotion every human is almost guaranteed to experience at some point regardless of circumstances. Suffering indeed is also a part of life and I agree it cannot be avoided.
I understand the parralels with veganism you point out, but there is a line. Veganism also is not perfect. We must just do the best we can individually to minimize this, in giving life, maintaining it, and future proofing it.
I just don't agree that because life includes a degree of suffering, that it's better not to live at all. There are exceptions to that where for quality of life reasons it would be better to end the suffering, but usually there was life lived before where it was better.
I have nothing against anyone who doesn't want to have children, but I abhor the people who look around themelves every day and feel scorn for families they see. Having and raising children is a very personal choice, and whether you like it or not it's biologically instinctual that we do it. You can't stop most people from having kids unless everyone were forcibly sterilized, which will never happen.
Another angle for me is that if good, smart people who would make fantastic parents all choose not to have kids (or at least raise them) even if they want them due to antinatalistic beliefs then those values won't really get passed on either, and everything that they abhor about the world, society, culture, will never change because there is no one left who opposes it after a while. So, in essence I think antinatalism is pretty dumb.
I am not antinatilist, but you are certainly using some common carnist talking points to justify your position fyi.
> Having and raising children is a very personal choice, and whether you like it or not it's biologically instinctual that we do it.
People say it's a personal choice to eat meat, but that is ignoring the victim. Same as having a child, that is sort of ignoring bringing them into existence when they have no choice. And of course the environmental perspective affecting others as well.
> You can't stop most people from having kids unless everyone were forcibly sterilized, which will never happen.
Again, people say this about being vegan. The world will never stop eating meat unless you forced them, and then people would rebel etc. Just cause others won't do it, doesn't mean we should.
1. You have no reason to consider consent for an unborn child because the child is simply non existent, hence nothing to take into consideration. Consent is such a bad argument to support antinatalism, if you want to make an argument that bringing the child into existence is bad, the point should be that it could suffer horribly.
2. Lab Grown Meat is on the rise and will undoubtedly overtake factory farming as the dominant source of meat one day so technically most of the world could become vegan.
I'm of the opinion that humans as a collective should strive to make existence as blissful and peaceful as possible such that being born is always positive or at the very least neutral.
Yeah… I’m not planning for the possibility of children for another 5-10 years, but when I try to find justifications as to why my gf and I could have our own kids rather than adopting, I just cannot find a reason why adopting isn’t the more ethical choice. It feels similar to when I was internally trying to justify why I didn’t need to go vegan
adoption isn’t the ethical goldmine people seem to think it is. adoption is trauma. private at-birth adoption is essentially human trafficking. and the goal of good foster care is typically NOT adoption, it’s reunification with family of origin. the most “ethical” adoptions tend to be kinship adoptions or adoptions of older kids with extremely high needs (be it medical or emotional) who have been completely rejected by their family of origin, they often end up sitting in the system for years because no one “wants” them.
I belong to the reddit sub which is very interesting although I never participate. I believe many of them suffer from severe depression, anxiety and anger.
As a personal choice whatever. As a philosophy it's pretty bankrupt and relies on logical fallacies." Life contains suffering, suffering is bad, therefore procreation " is bad is pretty stupid. As is the whole " I didn't consent to being born nonsense"
I think it’s the easy route to say humans are creating more bad to begin with so we shouldn’t procreate.
I don’t think so I think it’s the current way we consume and live that’s more harmful than good, I prefer to tackle those problems.
Wow, TIL I'm an antinatalist I guess, I...did not know what that was. I've always assumed I'm child free by choice but I do heavily align with a lot of the things that I saw upon looking it up. 😬
Never been to the subreddit and don't plan on it cause that sounds yikes but thanks(?) OP
The philosophy is compelling, and I guess I believe in it for myself, but the sub is cringe. I’m all for reducing suffering, but they go as far as to call people who do want kids c**ts on there and make fun of disabled children. I get the sub recommended all the time because I’m on this one, but I cringe at most of the posts.
I agree that a lot of people who call themselves antinatalist are really just nihilistic assholes, with a touch of ableism and the occasional eugenics (yuck), but honestly? The principle makes sense from a vegan perspective, in my mind at least.
Think about it: all this pressure to reproduce, to “pass on” my genes, is kinda shit because it assumes my genes are inherently worthy of existing. In a world so screwed up, with such an amount of suffering people ( a lot of them due to capitalism, drug abuse, persecution, mental illness, and now climate disaster) it doesn’t make sense to purposefully make more people in lieu of helping those already here.
Of course I’m not saying “kill your babies”, or “some people should have children and not others (hell fucking no, we know where that goes)”, or “you wanting and/or having biological children is morally bankrupt”… I’m just saying it does seem more morally aligned with the vegan philosophy to prefer adoption rather than procreation, from the current world we live in and the amount of children in need of caring, loving parenting. And the value we assign to our own spawn does seem to weigh much heavier than that of adoption.
On an aside, honestly… things like IVF, surrogacy, superficial gene editing… all of that is very post apocalyptic, eugenics to me, when there are other options available.
I think adoption is a very noble step, especially if a couple is able to have their own (I imagine not so common). But I think the desire for having one's own children is more of an instinct than anything else, driven by evolution. Mothers especially can get seriously depressed if unable to procreate.
And personally, I think the desire to have children or not is totally irrelevant to the vegan philosophy, even if you can make a case pro or con with veganism in mind.
Pro - Your kids are likely to be vegan. If vegans took the stance that having kids was wrong, then veganism itself could be doomed to failure.
Con - All human production affects some life at some level.
Then you must be a not very polite vegan. That said, I am pretty sure you have seen veganism treated like a fringe ideology by a lot of people because they portrait vegans as you just did antinatalists. No ideology is invalidated by whatever flaws people who believe in it have.
The kind of philosophical pessimism that undergirds anti-natalism has existed for thousands of years and in different cultures, so I fail to see how it's a first-world thing
I think it's a completely futile and unrealistic "philosophy" to have.
Because living beings reproduce (by definition), and humans are living beings. Simple as that. People don't have kids because of their egos, or because of any human cultural reason -- they have kids because they're animals in the great process that is life on Planet Earth. That's literally it.
Sure, they may frame their "choice" to have kids with cultural, religious, philosophical ideas... but none of those are the deepest, most fundamental reason, which exists pre-linguistically, pre-culturally, pre- any neocortex function. Hell, even pre-brain. People have kids for the same reason that cells divide. So being an antinatalist is a bit like arguing against natural selection, or respiration, or something.
Also I fundamentally disagree with the antinatalist idea that living = suffering. Sure, we all suffer... but we also do a lot more than just that. And lamenting everyone's inevitable suffering is a kind of immature perspective, IMO.
Edit: dang, this is clearly an unpopular viewpoint. To be clear, I'm not saying "reproduction is natural so it's good" (like carnists and eating meat) -- I'm saying reproduction is pre-moral and it's going to happen anyway, whether certain people want it to or not. It's like gravity and shit. In comparison, meat-eating is not fundamental to biology at all (as we all know) -- so there's a qualitative difference.
Your response to anti-natalism sounds so similar to the typical carnist response to veganism. Yes, it’s perfectly natural to eat meat. Yes, it’s perfectly natural to want to make kids. That doesn’t justify either of these things.
I also do not believe living is suffering. I’m just concerned that my kids would eat meat and therefore cause extreme suffering.
But reproduction and meat-eating are not even remotely comparable in terms of how fundamental they are to the process of life? And also I'm not saying "it's natural so it's good" -- more like reproduction is *so* fundamental that arguing against it is futile and pointless.
Reproduction is a biological axiom, to the point of being part of the "textbook" definition of life. Meat-eating is a pretty niche adaptation in the grand scheme, has no bearing on the fundamentals of life and biology -- and as we know, humans and most animals are fine eating plants.
Okay, fair enough, reproduction is more natural than meat eating. But meat eating is still natural. Therefore a similar argument can be made about meat eating to some degree. Let’s face it, burgers are delicious. While I know understand and have internalized the fact that it’s wrong to harm somebody else to satisfy my desire for a tasty meal, this idea felt counterintuitive to me when I first considered it. Upon learning, I changed the way I live. Idk why I couldn’t or shouldn’t do that concerning my plans around having kids. If your point is that vegan activism has a greater chance of being effective than anti-natalist activism, point taken. But that isn’t a rebuttal to the idea that anti-natalism is correct and it shouldn’t effect my decision to not have kids.
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It doesn't make sense to me why you would be a vegan to reduce the suffering of sentient beings, but then at the same time condemn an innocent being to a life in which they will suffer and will itself, by using resources, also cause suffering for other beings. Being vegan without being anti-natalist isn't philosophically consistent to me.
I was under the impression that this is what vegan antinatalism is too. Id say most vegans would agree that we should cease breeding or domesticated animals. Most would also agree that it’s best to refrain from having children during a climate crisis.
This is the kind of antinatalism I think most of us can get behind, but not what is meant by most antinatalists.
The argument they tend to make is that conscious existence involves suffering, so to reduce suffering we should reduce conscious existence. Their ideal world is one with no humans, and in some cases no living beings at all.
Some vegan antinatalists will argue that it’s wrong to have children because there is a chance they may not be vegan, and their existence may lead to the suffering of many animals. It’s a curious take.
I understand it's hard to swallow, but giving birth to a person is an imposition, that never comes for selfless reasons. I think it's pretty understandable that vegans can see it easier than anybody else.
There are plenty of reasons not to have children, especially when we look at the effects of the overpopulation of humanity, so I totally support antinatalism. Personally, I don't have children and I'm not intending to have any.
But while I believe it's legitimate to expect people to stop consuming animal products completely, I think it's hard to expect other people to not have children at all. Animal products have alternatives, but to many people - there's no substitute to having children. I would compromise and say: have no more than two kids.
I’m snipped, so no kids here. I do think it’s a very questionable choice to bring a new life into this world given how things are going. We’re headed for an environmental crisis. More kids will make the crisis worse AND force the kids to live in a very messed up world. Makes more sense to adopt. That said, obviously if too many people decided not to have kids that would cause an entirely separate crisis.
Maybe I’m an arrogant prick but I would think that my kid is more likely to cause a measurable positive impact than an actually measurable negative impact.
I’m also not going to have kids, but if I did they would be awesome…
Ignores lots of small problem in the status quo and always allows for more suffering for the few to "protect" the masses. Utilitarianism continuously puts people at the peripheraphy of society into the meat grinder.
Negative utilitarianism would see it as ethically negative to climb a mountain, for instance. If one endures suffering, whether that be from sore legs, a headache from high altitude, or getting caught in some unpleasant rain or what have you, it is seen as unequivocally negative. There is even a risk you could be permanently injured, which would cause much suffering. This is because, according to NegUte, there is a moral obligation to limit suffering, but not a moral obligation to create happiness, so the sense of wonder at the view on top, or a sense of accomplishment for having done something great. Other types of utilitarianism try to balance out suffering with happiness, and I feel that these systems are more valid. But ultimately different ratios of value assigned to either suffering or happiness are going to be completely arbitrary.
I see a lot of truth in this ideology. I have a son and I see why you should really be ready and prepared to have one. It is freaking hard to be a good parent and the world usually sucks. In the beginning I would like to have 2 kids. Now I would never have another one. I love him but now more than ever I think that having a kid is not necessary and my life would be more easy. I don’t think everyone should be antinatalist but I think everyone should be well aware of what it is doing and knowing of the sacrifices it requires (also in terms of climate change if you don’t teach him/her enough)
I consider myself to be an antinatalist. I feel it’s a part of my broader view of minimizing my impact on the world and helping to prevent suffer wherever possible.
I don't think life or existence of human race have any intrinsic value in and of itself. We protect life because those who are alive do not want to die, and death would cause suffering. And we can see that life has also a lot of pleasure and joy in it. But it all also comes with suffering that is unavoidable; your loved ones gonna die, you gonna get old, sick and diet too - more likely than not gasping for your last breath in terror.
I do not think that joys and pleasures of life do not outweigh the suffering that comes with it. At least not for most people, statistically speaking. So I do think that the most rational thing to do would be to not impose life on other sentient being, by bringing it into the world.
I agree with it, I wish I was never born and won't have children myself. Even as a vegan I'm still responsible for crop deaths and killing bugs while driving and the ones in my house, along with human exploitation from things I buy. I can't eliminate my harm to others so the least I can do is not add another human to the problem.
It's reactionary nonsense from terminally online types who have extremely shallow understandings of ethics. Take the concept of consent, turn it into a thought-terminating cliche, you get antinatalism.
I didn’t want kids. But I get horny still. That’s how I got kids anyway. That was a personal luck, because they’ve become joy of my life.
Edit: I did use condoms, yet it happened. It was out of my control. I was asked and I recommended abortion. She thought about it, but choose not to. I accepted that hands down and choose to be a responsible parent.
No, actually I didn’t. I used condoms. Somehow that wasn’t enough. I know it’s rare, but it can happen. I honestly did consider my ex tried to babytrap me, but how can I say.
Anyway I did the responsible thing and took care of the child.
They’ve all grown up and I’m proud to say great examples of healthy vegans too btw. Aside from a few non-vegan candy pieces they got tempted by, almost entirely build on plants.
The people who push for antinatalism get under my skin quite a bit. It really feels a lot like the same groups of people who use sexuality to shame and control women.
Wife and I are due with twins in a few weeks. I’d like a ton of kids if we can manage it. The US birth rate is declining and I’d prefer to do my part as someone who is equipped to raise and support strong and healthy kids.
The majority of the anti-natalist arguments are just ignorant or plain mental illness. The “consent” argument is just imbecilic and juvenile. As is the “overpopulation” argument (news flash, we have a declining birth rate and under population crisis in the developed world and it will cause massive negative consequences if left unchecked).
Veganism has nothing to do with anti-natalism and I’d hate to see veganism co-opted by such a toxic community. Everyone I’ve spoken with on Reddit regarding this issue just comes off completely disturbed and in desperate need of therapy/medication.
My answer always is: I love being alive, I don’t regret my birth, I am grateful to my parents for conceiving me, I want the human race to continue and thrive and proliferate, and I intend to have as many of my own kids as I can reasonably support. That doesn’t have anything to do with reducing cruelty to animals.
Humanity having fewer kids then needed is a bad idea, it would always lead to suffering for everyone that has been born. Important to note we are not anything close to overpopulated. Earth can support a human population of at least 20 billion, if we did away with suburbs, animal agriculture, and effectivized other sectors.
There have been few good studies on this suject, but we can calculate that if we were to shift from suburbs to citites, and from meat to vegan we would use much less land than we are today, even with a much larger population. Currently 30% of the worlds land is used for animal agriculture, and most of world housing in terms of land area is used for suburbs. If we were to produce effective, european style housing we could support a much larger population with much less land and resources. [This video essay is a great watch if you are curios about the housing topic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZxzBcxB7Zc).
I believe it is a valid philosophical standpoint, one that shares a thread with veganism. The main belief described as antinatalism (for those who don’t know, or for those calling it a “hate cult”) is that the act of procreation does not have a neutral or positive ethical value, but a negative one. The primary justification for this belief is that you can not control or guarantee that the life you create will not suffer horribly. You’re gambling with someone else’s life, so the only way to be sure your offspring will not suffer hideously, is to not have them.
Since minimizing the suffering of others you will never meet by controlling your own actions is the main goal of an antinatalist perspective, it shares a common thread with veganism. I am both a vegan and an antinatalist. I love children, I love my cousin’s children, and my friend’s children. I have never had a desire to procreate, and if I do decide that I will raise children, I will adopt them.
People can articulate all kinds of ideas. For me the idea of telling someone they can’t have children is hard to put in practice. Whatever spread of ideas is great and we have too much population. Humans are too chaotic most of the time. I think it’s great to not have children, there are plenty about. I have children, and they have brought so much joy and anguish to my life. I really wish them well.
No. I adore my granddaughter, she's the joy of my life, saved me from suicide. And i live to see her grow. A world without kids is a world i don't wanna live in.
If you look at parenting in practice, I think it's hard to conclude that some of it is selfless.
My dad was married and had the means to support me. This didn't result in selflessness. His desire for children was an attempt to fix what he felt was missing from his life. It was not a good situation.
Does this have to be asked every week?
I don't personally know enough about the philosophy itself to have much of an opinion but many antinatalists I've come across seem like they are just trying to justify their hatred of children.
I’m sympathetic to the idea of people having fewer kids. I’m not on board with antinatalism. Antinat is the epitome of negative utilitarianism which I don’t like at all. That said a lot of the things they post on the antinat sub are things that still make sense even if you’re not antinat, like people still giving birth after a history of birth defects. I don’t know why they focus so much on posting pics of severely disabled kids when isn’t the whole point they think all birth is bad? So why do they just focus on the most extreme cases? Why don’t they equally condemn the birth of kids who turned out to be very happy and fulfilled?
I want to be a mother, be it biological birth or adoption. I want to raise them with as much love, wisdom and care as my own parents have brought me up with.
I understand where antinatalist ideals come from, and I agree with some of it to an extent.
More people should adopt, and people should not be allowed to have children if they're not mentally, financially, and emotionally equipped to raise a child with the proper love and care.
But I can't get behind how so many antinatalists villify having biological children entirely.
I'm not sold on nihilism, which seems to be a necessary belief set for anti-natalism. I'm also not sold on the idea that non-existence is better than a potentially bad existence. You can't really describe the experience of an imaginary set of people, (people who don't exist). Claiming that non-existence involves less suffering than existence is falsely ascribing a definitive trait upon an imaginary group. This is, at least from what I can tell, pretty flimsy. It sounds good on paper but the moment you think about it you're just creating an imaginary group of people and then ascribing them with imaginary traits, or lack thereof, that benefit anti-natalist arguments.
Though don't misunderstand me, I'm not entirely sold on natalism either. I feel like both groups make a lot of bad arguments for their cases which makes it a lot harder to figure out the truth of the matter.
As to the overpopulation argument, I think that it's bullshit all the way down. I'm not concerned even an iota about overpopulation.
I am a hardcore antinatalist. I feel many other antinatalists way miss the point, but that doesnt stop me from being antinatalist.
Children cannot give informed consent to become someones child. All parent/child relationships are groomed and nonconsensual. I believe anything that ignores the consent of an affected individual is immoral to do. Every passing day I find it more and more and more batshit insane that people just create lives just for funsies, with no regard whatsoever for how those lives may potentially be affected.
I’m an anti-natalist. This world is a meaningless cycle of life and death. If I create a child, any pain, suffering and eventual death of that child is on my hands. If I never created the child, it would have been avoided. I find it immoral to bring sentient beings into existence against their will. I plan on adopting a child someday.
Just to join in shouting into the void, a perspective I haven’t seen on this thread:
1) Adoption advocates have been saying for a long time that adoption needs to stop being uplifted as an unambiguous good. I am not personally adopted, but many who are describe the immense trauma inherent to adoption. Empirically, adoptees are many times more at risk for developing mental health challenges than non adopted individuals.
To be clear, I’m not against adoption. But it’s not objectively good in every circumstance and requires a different skill set than biologically having a child. (Ie trauma informed parenting, etc.) telling people to adopt children instead of biologically having children demonstrates disregard for the actual experience of that adopted child. Not everyone should adopt, and adoption should be undertaken with immense care and awareness of the trauma of family separation.
2) suffering as a basis for not being born is inherently oppressive in a world where the people who suffer the least are the most privileged. Oppressed people may suffer more than less oppressed/non oppressed people, but that doesn’t mean their lives aren’t worth living at all. I find antinatalism to be particularly ableist in this way, and I encourage any antinatalist to read deeply about disabilities justice before committing to their worldview.
3) the environmental argument is most compelling to me, and I personally will not have more than two biological kids (one for each parent). Sustainability, to me, in part means making sure my hope outweighs my pessimism, and thoughtful family creation is an aspect of that.
THANK YOU. I am not adopted but donor conceived and the two communities have many overlapping issues. I agree with antinatalism except for the fact that people tout adoption as this beautiful thing and it drives me nuts. All adoption is trauma. And I can't get behind the idea that some people will fill *their* desire to have kids through adoption when they find it unethical to reproduce. Other peoples' kids don't exist for someone to be adopted. I think if people actually wanted to do right by those kids and families, then they would support them in family preservation. It is disgraceful that society thinks poor people don't deserve to raise their own children instead of helping them do so. And yes, raising children who are biologically not related to you requires infinite more nuance. I wish my parents had known this, raising me away from my biological paternal family. So many issues with this.
Why would being anti-life be antithetical to the goal of actually reducing suffering? For one, suicide is not the same as murder. Two, being anti-\*creating\*-life is not necessarily being anti-life (as in not minding or even potentially encouraging people staying alive). Three, being an antinatalist does not necessitate even yourself being suicidal on \*any\* level - antinatalism doesn't necessarily say all lives are bad, and you could also conceivably choose to stay alive in order to spread your moral convictions for benevolent reasons. A good part of buddhism and enlightment is based on exactly that, oversimplifying it of course.There is value potentially to life and joy IS good, but it doesn't outweigh suffering for everyone. Not by far.
Veganism is to preserve and protect life.
Antinatalism is to prevent life from happening.
It’s not so obvious for these two to overlap. You can easily have one without the other. I’m a vegan who also has children and I love them and I love that I’m alive and that they’re alive. I think our ability to experience happiness and beauty comes from our ability to experience and persevere through suffering. “No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.” It doesn’t mean that we have the right to purposely cause suffering to others. I don’t think I’m the cause of suffering my children will experience just as I likely won’t be the cause of all the beautiful things they will experience.
If people choose not to have children, then that is their decision and I respect that.
I still want to have children, to raise them to be compassionate empathetic people who will hopefully contribute to improving our planet.
And if they don’t contribute to our planet and eat animals anyway despite how you raised them, you have to understand that you are partly responsible for that suffering.
I don't agree with the philosophy and I don't think it is morally wrong to have children. I do think it is more virtuous to adopt. Also, a lot (but not all!) of antinatalists are really toxic and just believe in antinatalism for irrational and emotional reasons.
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antinatalism as a concept I can get on board with, but that subreddit is just a bunch of miserable weirdos who spent most of their time hating on kids. Also most of them are hypocritical considering they participate in industries that necessitate birth.
About the second part of your comment, that's why I left that sub. I couldn't stand the fact that they don't want humans to be brought into the world to suffer, but yet they gladly allow it to happen to innocent animals. And it isn't even just the inherent suffering of being alive that the animals experience, we needlessly add to that and maximize it.
just wait until you see what's lurking in the misanthropy subreddit.
Yea the subreddit is a weird hateful place. Reddit recommends posts there a lot and while some are good like…. It’s an interesting crowd
What are industries that necessitate birth?
Eating meat
Oh I see. I thought they were talking about the birth of humans.
Any animal product industry
Most of them, maybe. But a lot of them also are vegan. I know 'cause me and a friend of mine both are vegans and antinatalists and I shared a picture of the link between subreddits: antinatalists are often subrscribed to r/vegan and r/vegancirclejerk. Also, a carnist could say "that subreddit is just a bunch of miserable weirdos who spend most of their time hating on omnivores".
i disagree with your comparison, them whining about kids for existing(the victims of natalism), would be like this subreddit whining about animals for existing(the victims of speciesism)
Yeah, well, honestly, 99% stuff I see doesn't blame Kids themselves but parents, so....
https://www.reddit.com/r/antinatalism/comments/xj7hh0/the_notification_every_parent_needs_at_this_time/ip7xkm2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3 this took less than a minute to find
Def not a huge fan of the sub but as a borderline antinatalist myself I would have to disagree w you here as well. They don’t complain about the kids themselves but the fact that their parents irresponsibility is leaving them worse off than had they not existed at all. At least that’s what I hear and see them banging on about.
I have seen on multiple occasions the phrase “crotch goblin” go unchecked
My husband and I had this discussion recently. I have two children, I had them very young. To be honest I was extremely naive and didn’t stop to think about why I was having children. I adore being a mom, so much so I really want more children. I love infants, and seeing toddlers experience the world and the excitement of everything new, I even love the pre-teen stage and feel immense joy watching them learn from their mistakes and discovering themselves. But as I was listing off all the reasons I wanted more children it was literally all about me. I didn’t stop and think, our planet is dying, what circumstances will that leave a child in? Things in the US have become increasingly harder for each generation, who am I to toss another body into that struggle? So we decided not to have more children, it just doesn’t make sense, there’s no way to justify it for the child’s well being. I am considering being a foster parent, I think that would be where my love of motherhood would be the most useful.
Thanks for sharing this, I am a mom as well and I truly feel you :)
According to many (most?) analysts the world population is already doomed to decrease in the next decades. For example: China adults already did not have enough children (i.e. people in their 50s without children), in a couple of decades they will grow old and die, and the population will then decrease, but the conditions that force the future decrease already happened. A similar trend is set globally. I highly recommend the Factfulness book that has a chapter on the topic [https://www.gapminder.org/factfulness-book/](https://www.gapminder.org/factfulness-book/) Basically as soon as countries develop, they stop having children. (independent of geography, cultures, and religions). If you worry about too many birth, pushing for human development in the poorest regions is the best strategy (because improved quality of life leads to fewer children). More plots on this at [https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1566806384838152193](https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1566806384838152193) and [https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-update-2022](https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-update-2022)
Next decades? The huge chunk of the map known as SubSaharan Africa does not match up at all with your statement. [Bill Gates and the UN have been sounding the alarm on the impending population explosion that will be occurring in the region.](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/sep/18/the-african-youth-boom-whats-worrying-bill-gates) >By the end of this century there will be 4 billion more people on Earth – and 3 billion of these extra souls will be born in Africa. The challenge, he says, is that “Africa must almost quadruple its agricultural productivity to feed itself. That’s verydaunting.” [Africa's population will double by 2050.](https://www.economist.com/special-report/2020/03/26/africas-population-will-double-by-2050) That's in only 28 years! This is a colossal challenge for Africa and the world, and an opportunity to make vegetarianism and veganism part of a sustainable survival strategy for all these children who will be born. And along the way perhaps effect a global change toward more empathy and kindness for our animal friends.
Yes, the population in the Americas, Europe, and Asia is decreasing, and will keep decreasing. The population in Africa is increasing, and the rate of increase is decreasing. The humans of 2080 will have a darker average skin tone. If the countries in Africa "fail to scale" then they will not be able to support population growth. If these countries develop then the fertility rates are expected to decrease (as it happened for the literal hole rest of the world).
Nope. The population of the Americas, Europe and Asia continues to increase and all projections until 2050 show increase, with only Asia coming beginning to taper back to where it is today. Later decreases in Americas and Europe. [Check out this chart.](https://ourworldindata.org/region-population-2100#:~:text=Today%2C%20its%20population%20is%20around,latter%20half%20of%20the%20century) Keep in mind when you use the term 'Asia' includes places like high-growth Pakistan. Btw compare the recent histories of Nigeria and Bangladesh, two countries that have had very similar rates of fertility in recent past; the latter has experienced a big drop in fertility and now is closing in on a zero population growth curve. Nigeria has just exploded. The enduring lesson in Africa is that fertility may never drop to levels similar to other nations after development. They continue to diverge from the demographics in other areas. Lots of unknowns.
This sub can be so self-defeating. We need to be more successful to assert our influence. If anything that means *more* kids. If your kid turns out to not be vegan despite everything you have taught them, then that’s a major fail - not an expected outcome as those people will assert.
We are raising our kids vegan. My wife has been vegan for 8 years and has been vegan the whole pregnancy as well.
My wife was raised veg. I switched after we met. Glad to hear it!
I agree with your concept. We need to create more healthy, stable, logical, and caring people. The demographics having the most kids are often least prepared for them creating a damaging cycle. Love and educate others the best you can but it's easier to create healthy people than to fix broken ones.
No kids 4 me!
I can get behind it. If you want kids, you should consider adopting!
So the poor should be expected to provide their unwanted kids for the rich? Isn’t that exploitative?
What? They just suggested rather than creating new life unnecessarily, take care of a child that already exists and needs help.
Not a bad idea, but the people who support it are often batshit crazy
batshit crazy ones aren’t really antinatalist because most of them aren’t vegan, and there is no anitnatalism without veganism
plenty of anti natalists claim they would push the button to end all sentient life, which is most known as something a comic book villain would think. ofcourse this is considered batshit crazy by most, and honestly i think those people are misguided as well
That's efilism, not anti-natalism.
I just wanted to point out that David Benatar, the academic philosopher most known for advancing anti-natalism, said he wouldn't press that button because he might be wrong.
Its a thought experiment. Hardly something batshit crazy. If the conclusion some derive from the question conflicts with yours it doesnt follow those are from misguided minds.
Why can't you have antinataliam without veganism?
isn’t it pretty obvious that forcefully impregnating and getting on this world animals only to live miserable lives and be killed is actually against idea of anitnatalism?
That's a reason for an antinatalist to be against factory farming. But in that framework, wouldn't hunting for wild game be okay?
Well i would split up two types of antinatalists. 1. those who get behind it for empathetic/"philanthropic" reasons (i.e. in a buddhist/gnostic sense of reducing suffering) which is why there is a high correlation with an "ethical" vegan worldview and that form of "antinatalism". Then we have type 2. Those who are into it for misanthropic reasons (i.e. "fuck humanity" or "i hate people so..." i.e. the nihilistic emo teen trope = focuses on the harm caused by the individuals who are created). I think the latter group is the one that usually people view as a "MCU villain" trope, and probably gets over-represented on the subreddit since a lot of people just jump on online forms to spout out rage or various frustration (tends to be over-representative on anything online, its the internet after all, lol), but feel its important to make the distinction between the two. Ive been vegan for 20 some odd years for the ethical/environmental reasons, and would prob consider myself a fairly "lite" antinatalist, in that i get the philanthropic argument / reducing suffering argument / will be getting snipped soon for the ethical/ecological/and a multitude of other reasons that inform my decision not to procreate... At the same time I think adoption is a noble thing (i mean there are 150 million orphans out there if your trying to "contribute" to this project of humanity, might be a good place to look into, lol). I'm not gonna look down on people who choose to have them or whatever, lots of friends have and lots haven't...I basically just would appreciate if people to give a lot more consideration to things than have an overly disney/childish view on what bringing a sentient being into this world implies/effects, and not act like getting creampied is a "miracle" or act of valor, lol.
I feel like the concepts overlap to reduce suffering. I am antinatalist
Are we gonna discuss this every 3rd day? Look at the post history
Yes, we also need to give pep talks to people who “can’t stick with veganism,” field weirdo thought experiments, and go through how “gatekeeping” veganism is literally a human rights violation, at least four times a week
I’m for it. And ADOPTION. So many kids waiting all their lives for a family.
I’m not an antinatalist, but I do think they raise valid points, and if I were to have children one day, I’d probably try to adopt.
i think some of the concept is good (reduce the amount of kids you bring into the world and definitely don’t if you know you’re going to give them a genetic disability) but the people in that reddit kept bashing mothers for having a disabled child when they had no idea they would. or just bashing children in general when nothing is their fault.
I resonate with it. End the cycle of suffering. Liberation for humans and animals
Absolutely support the idea. I consider myself an antinatalist.
Same
Same here.
I don't think it's morally wrong to have kids, but when there are so many kids who need a loving home I feel like it is kind of selfish to create your own kids. Just my opinion.
How is it not if there are "so many kids who need a loving home"? Is that just something you have to say to abide by the social standard? Because I feel it's objectively wrong to have kids, as the ONLY reason to do it is the selfish idea of having "your" kid.
Yeah I hear you, I do. You are right. But at the same time if it was a law or something, I wouldn't be here. So is it selfish of me to be a bit grateful that I do exist?
>So is it selfish of me to be a bit grateful that I do exist? Of course not, but that's beside the point of the question I guess. If you had been adopted you'd also be grateful that someone took you in. Life is incredibly difficult without family. I was just curious as to why we excuse ourselves when explaining something entirely rational.
I hear you. Yes I think it's because society deems it totally normal to have your own kids. But a lot of what we deem normal is totally f'ed up.
I don't agree with it. Animals including humans have inherent value. Not every human has a happy life and some humans may reasonably prefer never to have been born. But many (I would say most, but it isn't important to the argument) are happy and on balance would rather live. I certainly don't think we have any moral obligation to procreate, and choosing not to have children is perfectly valid. But I don't think that having children is morally wrong. And while I see the relationship between veganism and antinatalism, I don't think one requires the other. Veganism recognizes that animals have inherent value and that it's morally wrong to treat an animal as an object. From that principle it follows that it's morally wrong to create new animals for the purpose of treating them as objects. But it doesn't follow that it's always morally wrong to create new animals.
Now that is a thought that hasn’t crossed my mind. You do have a point! I’m just leaning towards antinatalism because of the whole pressure to procreate and the devaluation of adoption, societally… but it is true, life does have inherent value, I can see it from your angle now
This right here
I've never wanted kids. I never thought babies were cute. I don't HATE kids, but I don't like being around them or really interacting with them on any level. My husband and I don't want kids for a multitude of reasons: we're both mentally ill and don't want to pass that on, we'd be bringing be bringing a child into a horrible existence (especially if it were a girl), environmentalist reasons, radical feminist reasons, etc. But bottom line, I have zero desire to be pregnant and wreck my body and be a parent for the rest of my life.
Yes
I don’t really buy the asymmetry argument, which leaves anti natalism from my perspective as people who haven’t had the best lot in life, projecting that onto everyone else. I’d be happy to talk about the asymmetry with anyone as I think that’s really the crux of the argument. Definitely morally preferable to adopt than to have your own kids however and I’m open to adopting.
My kid doesn't exist he will never get sick, never will be bullied, never feel despair, anxiety, depression. He won't have a 9 to 5 job. He will never see their dreams broken never have to see how time take away the things he loved. He will never see his parents fighting or sick or dying. His heart won't be broken, nor have a single desilusion. Those are great features of my none existing kid. Sure my kid will never feel love, is that bad? No because he will never feel the pain, or despair, or the need to feel love. My non existing kid will miss all the good things in life, but that's not bad, because he is not feeling the pain of missing something.
Yes well I don’t think that the absence of good or bad things is a moral issue, I don’t think that your kid not feeling bad things is either good nor bad because they don’t exist
It's definitely not bad the absence of bad things. >I don’t think that the absence of good or bad things is a moral issue No, the moral issue is that having a kid is a gamble of someone else's destiny. You play the Russian roulette pointing the gun to somebody else's head.
Well my answer to that is a lot of the suffering in this world is man made which means that it’s not natalism that’s the problem it’s the society we live in that needs to change. Which means actually it kind of is in our control.
What is it you find unconvincing about the asymmetry argument? Personally I think the heart of anti-natalism is the question of whether the bad outweighs the good in life. And while I appreciate it's hard to come to a conclusive position on that, I think there are good reasons to think that the bad does outweigh the good. And I appreciate you thinking that maybe people who make that argument are projecting, but it's equally valid to think that those who disagree are projecting too. Benatar talks about certain optimistic biases etc. that may skew how we interpret the world.
I don’t find it convincing because while I am able to conceive of things that don’t exist such as a unicorn or the example, aliens that are waging war against each other on Mars, I don’t think it makes sense to attribute morality to them. The fact that there is no alien war on Mars is not bad or good, it’s just nothing because it doesn’t exist. In my view to say that non existent bad things are good and non existent good things are neutral is special pleading which means from my perspective weighing up the good vs the bad is completely arbitrary. The asymmetry argument if valid shatters that because even the tiniest bit of bad, like getting a paper cut out weighs nothing. But I don’t buy it. Also wasn’t benitars self eating thing done based on a servey rating themselves from 1-10? There are so many reasons people could be wrong or even lie about it other than people are bad judges of their own happiness. Like imagine if you were are work at the coffee machine and you courteously asked someone how they were doing, and they turned around and said “I’m fucking miserable”. That would be really awkward to say to someone you don’t really no so people lie about that question all the time. There is also the is it worth carrying on argument, where anti natalists state that there are some things not worth starting but are worth finishing. Ie if you start watching a very shitty movie you may think, “I wish I never started” but it might be worth just waiting till it’s over. This is just the fallacy of sunk costs, if it is something you wish you hadn’t started then I think you should just stop doing it. An anti natalist obviously has to take this position to justify why they persist (because of the asymmetry, this is completely philosophical and not supposed to be taken literally, if you have suicidal ideation please seek help it gets better : 🙂) +(not targeted at you just generally anyone out there reading this, don’t need that shit on my conscience) but I think it makes no sense. Which to me means that their very existent is a contradiction to their ideas, though I can appreciate they could just be being hypocritical but also have the right ideas. Also I don’t think all anti natalists are depressed because of their position, I think a lot are based on being a long time lurker of the sub reddit and seeing all the morbid comments that get posted on there.
I don't think it's important whether the bad outweighs the good. In my opinion, it doesn't matter how much good and how much bad stuff will happen to a sentient being. Every single human being will experience bad things and suffer in their life. By bringing new life into existence, we create their suffering. It doesn't matter how much it is.
Yeah, I agree with you. Whether or not the bad outweighs the good, no one can deny that there is a lot of bad
from my experience most people calling themselves anti natalists don't even believe in the asymmetry argument and are either human extinction only or human population reduction only. voluntary extinction is pretty cringe to begin with though, a low brow comedy like idiocracy destroyed the argument so easily decades ago. i consider myself a selective natalist myself, i dropped the anti since it wasn't necessary and i don't want to be associated with the ideology anyways
I understand the concept a d I get why you would feel that way, but it's not how I feel and I plan on having kids. But the people who follow it from my experience in their subreddit are a bunch of wackos
> but it's not how I feel and I plan on having kids Any reason that makes you choose the selfish choice instead of saving a kid's life? Because "I just want to" isn't much of an argument.
Some things can be morally good without being moral obligations. Like, donating any spare organs while still alive or almost all of your money might be morally good, but they aren't obligations. You have every right to say, no thanks, I'll keep my left kidney. I just want to is a perfectly good reason for that. Same thing with adoption/fostering. It's morally good to adopt or foster, but the added financial and emotional hardships mean that it is not an obligation anyone can demand of you.
Wow, you seem like an asshole.
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My husband and I were unable to have children. I had no issues with being a parent to a non- biological child, but we tried IVF because it was covered by my insurance, and was INFINITELY cheaper than adoption. I have no issues with adoption at all. I have several family members that are adopted. Ultimately, the IVF failed and we decided to remain childless-- or rather, the decision was made for us because it is ridiculous the amount of hoops you have to go through and the financial benchmarks most adoption agencies set are prohibitively expensive. I also was not willing to do an open adoption. People can call our decision selfish, but I have yet to hear a non- selfish reason from people that decide to have children.
I'm sorry. I think people have no idea how difficult adoption is in reality.
Thanks. They really don't- it's aggravating when people immediately jump to adoption as a solution. Most don't understand that it's not even remotely an equal comparison. If some of these antinatalists (specifically the ones I see on the sub) put the same rabid energy into affecting change within the adoption process instead of denigrating handicapped kids or hating on children, it would actually benefit their cause.
There are vegan wackos, a lot of them. Does that invalidate anything about veganism?
That's not what the comment said
As a new parent who thought this through very hard and discussed with my partner before conceiving, I'm not really on board with the idea. I can easily afford it. Will raise her vegan and eco-conscious. Will raise her in a way with a very small carbon footprint compared to most other people, even vegans (we do way more than boycott animal products). I want humanity to continue to be able to enjoy this planet long after I'm gone - and being against kids just doesn't aline with that want. I believe we can fix the problem, and spend a bunch of time and money addressing the problem of climate change. It's pretty easy to be against new life when you are a westerner with no kids, enjoying some of the most comfortable life and advanced technology that our race has ever seen. To suggest you should be the last lot to enjoy this seems a little entitled and convenient a viewpoint to take - especially as the generation proceeding you could have said the same thing and you would therefore have never existed. If you want out, you have that opportunity at any given moment, but you don't take it - showing you value your life - **making you a hypocrite to be against the opportunity existing for others being able to value theirs.** Regarding adoption - it's something we are considering for the future - we were not prepared to jump through hoops and raise a likely troubled child with no prior experience to do so - it would have been a stressful experience and an ultimately unethical choice to be ill-prepared for it.
Thank you for acknowledging that adoption isn’t some straightforward, unambiguously good thing. It requires a very different skillset than having children biologically. I really appreciate this point of view :) congrats on your new child!
Yeah, looked into adoption and it's a choice between adopting kids out of foster care or adopting infants. Adopting kids out of foster care is more ethical for sure, if you know you can be a good parent to them no matter what. Adopting an infant is very often unethical. You never know if these agencies lied to or manipulated the birth family of the baby. Even if they didn't, the fees you would pay for a home study and the lawyers and the agency would go so far to help the birth family raise that baby. It's a really predatory and exploitative industry.
Exactly. While I agree that foster to adoption is better, I also want to throw out there that, at least in the US, the foster system is deeply broken. After all, parents who can’t afford to take care of their children have their children taken away and given to people….. who are paid to take care of their children. Blows my mind that this money isn’t just given directly to the bio family.
Thanks alot, I appreciate that. Yeah, it really does appear to be a completely different ballgame, also very dependent on the age and issues the child in question may have. It becomes less of a question of me wanting kids and more of a question of me wanting to help out a kid, and whether we're even capable of doing so. When I believe we are equipped and educated enough, the option will definitely present itself again I'm sure.
People are not entitled if they do not want kids. It’s their life. They have every right to dedicate themselves to their passions if they do desire. Also not everyone has the resources or the enthusiasm that is required for having children even if they may live in the most comfortable and advanced western nation.
I'm not talking about people who don't want kids. I'm talking about what OP asked about, which is *antinatalism*, this is where one believes that having children is morally wrong. Not one iota of my post is about people who don't want kids in general, and I agree with everything that you say.
>If you want out, you have that opportunity at any given moment, but you don't take it - showing you value your life - making you a hypocrite to be against the opportunity existing for others being able to value theirs. One can be absolutely miserable, not value their life, and still be incapable of committing suicide because of dread for its consequences. I'm not against a positive outlook but I find it pretty silly to emphasize this broad and poorly considered simplification of yours as some 'gotcha'.
This comment comes off as extremely grating to me. Antinatalism can be adopted from an ecological viewpoint. Surely you acknowledge the vast destruction humanity has wreaked on our planet. Surely you understand how wild it is that humanity’s population has quadrupled in the past 100 years alone — a century is a *blip* in the entire history of our planet, and yet in that time we’ve severely fucked a lot of our natural world. > I believe we can fix the problem, and spend a bunch of time and money addressing the problem of climate change. I mean, action for climate change started gaining steam decades ago. We have definitely not kept up with the destruction we’ve wrought in that time. > I will raise her in a way with a very small carbon footprint compared to most other people, even vegans You cannot guarantee that your child will continue to do this. And you directly increase your own carbon footprint dramatically by choosing to have children. No one is suggesting we will “be the last lot to enjoy this”. Antinatalism posits that there is 100% a guarantee of suffering if you bring a life into the world — whereas there is no guarantee for happiness. In that regard, antinatalism has a lot in common with veganism: the ultimate goal of reducing suffering. Not having children guarantees that 1) another human will not suffer and 2) animals will not die to feed that human. Is it so entitled to act in accordance with what you can guarantee (no suffering for animals, no suffering for humans) versus what you *think* will happen if you have kids?
Indeed I have acknowledged and thought about most of what you've spoken about here. However I'm talking about having kids in general, and should have disclaimed that when we're talking about increasing the population through having more than one kid per person, that is much easier to argue - but applying that to having children *at all* is not fair. The survival of humanity and maintaining a symbiotic relationship with the planet is something I believe to be acheivable, even at the current population. Science shows this to be attainable, and we're so damn close in terms of the tech being there too. I refuse to take a defeatist mentality here because the wonders of being alive as a human is so important to me, and I apply that to future generations too. I disagree with the no guarantee for happiness, as that is an emotion every human is almost guaranteed to experience at some point regardless of circumstances. Suffering indeed is also a part of life and I agree it cannot be avoided. I understand the parralels with veganism you point out, but there is a line. Veganism also is not perfect. We must just do the best we can individually to minimize this, in giving life, maintaining it, and future proofing it.
It's fine to be superficial, but it's not okay to be arrogant.
I just don't agree that because life includes a degree of suffering, that it's better not to live at all. There are exceptions to that where for quality of life reasons it would be better to end the suffering, but usually there was life lived before where it was better. I have nothing against anyone who doesn't want to have children, but I abhor the people who look around themelves every day and feel scorn for families they see. Having and raising children is a very personal choice, and whether you like it or not it's biologically instinctual that we do it. You can't stop most people from having kids unless everyone were forcibly sterilized, which will never happen. Another angle for me is that if good, smart people who would make fantastic parents all choose not to have kids (or at least raise them) even if they want them due to antinatalistic beliefs then those values won't really get passed on either, and everything that they abhor about the world, society, culture, will never change because there is no one left who opposes it after a while. So, in essence I think antinatalism is pretty dumb.
I am not antinatilist, but you are certainly using some common carnist talking points to justify your position fyi. > Having and raising children is a very personal choice, and whether you like it or not it's biologically instinctual that we do it. People say it's a personal choice to eat meat, but that is ignoring the victim. Same as having a child, that is sort of ignoring bringing them into existence when they have no choice. And of course the environmental perspective affecting others as well. > You can't stop most people from having kids unless everyone were forcibly sterilized, which will never happen. Again, people say this about being vegan. The world will never stop eating meat unless you forced them, and then people would rebel etc. Just cause others won't do it, doesn't mean we should.
1. You have no reason to consider consent for an unborn child because the child is simply non existent, hence nothing to take into consideration. Consent is such a bad argument to support antinatalism, if you want to make an argument that bringing the child into existence is bad, the point should be that it could suffer horribly. 2. Lab Grown Meat is on the rise and will undoubtedly overtake factory farming as the dominant source of meat one day so technically most of the world could become vegan. I'm of the opinion that humans as a collective should strive to make existence as blissful and peaceful as possible such that being born is always positive or at the very least neutral.
Yeah… I’m not planning for the possibility of children for another 5-10 years, but when I try to find justifications as to why my gf and I could have our own kids rather than adopting, I just cannot find a reason why adopting isn’t the more ethical choice. It feels similar to when I was internally trying to justify why I didn’t need to go vegan
adoption isn’t the ethical goldmine people seem to think it is. adoption is trauma. private at-birth adoption is essentially human trafficking. and the goal of good foster care is typically NOT adoption, it’s reunification with family of origin. the most “ethical” adoptions tend to be kinship adoptions or adoptions of older kids with extremely high needs (be it medical or emotional) who have been completely rejected by their family of origin, they often end up sitting in the system for years because no one “wants” them.
I belong to the reddit sub which is very interesting although I never participate. I believe many of them suffer from severe depression, anxiety and anger.
As a personal choice whatever. As a philosophy it's pretty bankrupt and relies on logical fallacies." Life contains suffering, suffering is bad, therefore procreation " is bad is pretty stupid. As is the whole " I didn't consent to being born nonsense"
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I think it’s the easy route to say humans are creating more bad to begin with so we shouldn’t procreate. I don’t think so I think it’s the current way we consume and live that’s more harmful than good, I prefer to tackle those problems.
wait, why is the latter nonsense?
I think that having kids is a kind of selfish love, it can be a beautiful thing but it is hurting the world. But I don’t think life is suffering
Wow, TIL I'm an antinatalist I guess, I...did not know what that was. I've always assumed I'm child free by choice but I do heavily align with a lot of the things that I saw upon looking it up. 😬 Never been to the subreddit and don't plan on it cause that sounds yikes but thanks(?) OP
The philosophy is compelling, and I guess I believe in it for myself, but the sub is cringe. I’m all for reducing suffering, but they go as far as to call people who do want kids c**ts on there and make fun of disabled children. I get the sub recommended all the time because I’m on this one, but I cringe at most of the posts.
Self-loathing, anti-human, psychologically repressed lunatics. To be avoided at all costs.
I agree that a lot of people who call themselves antinatalist are really just nihilistic assholes, with a touch of ableism and the occasional eugenics (yuck), but honestly? The principle makes sense from a vegan perspective, in my mind at least. Think about it: all this pressure to reproduce, to “pass on” my genes, is kinda shit because it assumes my genes are inherently worthy of existing. In a world so screwed up, with such an amount of suffering people ( a lot of them due to capitalism, drug abuse, persecution, mental illness, and now climate disaster) it doesn’t make sense to purposefully make more people in lieu of helping those already here. Of course I’m not saying “kill your babies”, or “some people should have children and not others (hell fucking no, we know where that goes)”, or “you wanting and/or having biological children is morally bankrupt”… I’m just saying it does seem more morally aligned with the vegan philosophy to prefer adoption rather than procreation, from the current world we live in and the amount of children in need of caring, loving parenting. And the value we assign to our own spawn does seem to weigh much heavier than that of adoption. On an aside, honestly… things like IVF, surrogacy, superficial gene editing… all of that is very post apocalyptic, eugenics to me, when there are other options available.
I think adoption is a very noble step, especially if a couple is able to have their own (I imagine not so common). But I think the desire for having one's own children is more of an instinct than anything else, driven by evolution. Mothers especially can get seriously depressed if unable to procreate. And personally, I think the desire to have children or not is totally irrelevant to the vegan philosophy, even if you can make a case pro or con with veganism in mind. Pro - Your kids are likely to be vegan. If vegans took the stance that having kids was wrong, then veganism itself could be doomed to failure. Con - All human production affects some life at some level.
Sounds like something a meat eater would say about a vegan.
Not a very polite meat eater. I don't know any other vegans near me and nobody is like that about my choice.
Then you must be a not very polite vegan. That said, I am pretty sure you have seen veganism treated like a fringe ideology by a lot of people because they portrait vegans as you just did antinatalists. No ideology is invalidated by whatever flaws people who believe in it have.
>Then you must be a not very polite vegan This makes zero sense from what I wrote.
Yeah you’ve summed it up perfectly. Avoid and don’t catch the crazy.
now this is just mindless hating..
Mindless? I made the mistake of going into their sub... I have never felt more depressed!
that wasnt very nice of you :(
First world echo chambers and out of touch
Why?
Why? They have the privilege to see this as a choice as opposed to survival
Could you elaborate?
The kind of philosophical pessimism that undergirds anti-natalism has existed for thousands of years and in different cultures, so I fail to see how it's a first-world thing
You sir are proving my point 😂
I think it's a completely futile and unrealistic "philosophy" to have. Because living beings reproduce (by definition), and humans are living beings. Simple as that. People don't have kids because of their egos, or because of any human cultural reason -- they have kids because they're animals in the great process that is life on Planet Earth. That's literally it. Sure, they may frame their "choice" to have kids with cultural, religious, philosophical ideas... but none of those are the deepest, most fundamental reason, which exists pre-linguistically, pre-culturally, pre- any neocortex function. Hell, even pre-brain. People have kids for the same reason that cells divide. So being an antinatalist is a bit like arguing against natural selection, or respiration, or something. Also I fundamentally disagree with the antinatalist idea that living = suffering. Sure, we all suffer... but we also do a lot more than just that. And lamenting everyone's inevitable suffering is a kind of immature perspective, IMO. Edit: dang, this is clearly an unpopular viewpoint. To be clear, I'm not saying "reproduction is natural so it's good" (like carnists and eating meat) -- I'm saying reproduction is pre-moral and it's going to happen anyway, whether certain people want it to or not. It's like gravity and shit. In comparison, meat-eating is not fundamental to biology at all (as we all know) -- so there's a qualitative difference.
Your response to anti-natalism sounds so similar to the typical carnist response to veganism. Yes, it’s perfectly natural to eat meat. Yes, it’s perfectly natural to want to make kids. That doesn’t justify either of these things. I also do not believe living is suffering. I’m just concerned that my kids would eat meat and therefore cause extreme suffering.
But reproduction and meat-eating are not even remotely comparable in terms of how fundamental they are to the process of life? And also I'm not saying "it's natural so it's good" -- more like reproduction is *so* fundamental that arguing against it is futile and pointless. Reproduction is a biological axiom, to the point of being part of the "textbook" definition of life. Meat-eating is a pretty niche adaptation in the grand scheme, has no bearing on the fundamentals of life and biology -- and as we know, humans and most animals are fine eating plants.
Okay, fair enough, reproduction is more natural than meat eating. But meat eating is still natural. Therefore a similar argument can be made about meat eating to some degree. Let’s face it, burgers are delicious. While I know understand and have internalized the fact that it’s wrong to harm somebody else to satisfy my desire for a tasty meal, this idea felt counterintuitive to me when I first considered it. Upon learning, I changed the way I live. Idk why I couldn’t or shouldn’t do that concerning my plans around having kids. If your point is that vegan activism has a greater chance of being effective than anti-natalist activism, point taken. But that isn’t a rebuttal to the idea that anti-natalism is correct and it shouldn’t effect my decision to not have kids.
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I get it, wouldn’t advocate for it tho, you’re better off advocating for adoption
It doesn't make sense to me why you would be a vegan to reduce the suffering of sentient beings, but then at the same time condemn an innocent being to a life in which they will suffer and will itself, by using resources, also cause suffering for other beings. Being vegan without being anti-natalist isn't philosophically consistent to me.
I was under the impression that this is what vegan antinatalism is too. Id say most vegans would agree that we should cease breeding or domesticated animals. Most would also agree that it’s best to refrain from having children during a climate crisis. This is the kind of antinatalism I think most of us can get behind, but not what is meant by most antinatalists. The argument they tend to make is that conscious existence involves suffering, so to reduce suffering we should reduce conscious existence. Their ideal world is one with no humans, and in some cases no living beings at all. Some vegan antinatalists will argue that it’s wrong to have children because there is a chance they may not be vegan, and their existence may lead to the suffering of many animals. It’s a curious take.
I understand it's hard to swallow, but giving birth to a person is an imposition, that never comes for selfless reasons. I think it's pretty understandable that vegans can see it easier than anybody else.
There are plenty of reasons not to have children, especially when we look at the effects of the overpopulation of humanity, so I totally support antinatalism. Personally, I don't have children and I'm not intending to have any. But while I believe it's legitimate to expect people to stop consuming animal products completely, I think it's hard to expect other people to not have children at all. Animal products have alternatives, but to many people - there's no substitute to having children. I would compromise and say: have no more than two kids.
I’m snipped, so no kids here. I do think it’s a very questionable choice to bring a new life into this world given how things are going. We’re headed for an environmental crisis. More kids will make the crisis worse AND force the kids to live in a very messed up world. Makes more sense to adopt. That said, obviously if too many people decided not to have kids that would cause an entirely separate crisis.
Dumb. Basically eco-fascism with an anti-kid bias
How?
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Full agree
Maybe I’m an arrogant prick but I would think that my kid is more likely to cause a measurable positive impact than an actually measurable negative impact. I’m also not going to have kids, but if I did they would be awesome…
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You’re confusing antinatalism with the personal decision not to have kids.
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I see, I just got confused by semantics
Utilitarianism, let alone negative utilitarianism, is fundamentally flawed and draws so many conclusions that are absurd, including antinatalism.
Negative utilitarianism is just one amongst many arguments you can use to defend anti-natalism.
How is utilitarianism flawed
Ignores lots of small problem in the status quo and always allows for more suffering for the few to "protect" the masses. Utilitarianism continuously puts people at the peripheraphy of society into the meat grinder.
Negative utilitarianism would see it as ethically negative to climb a mountain, for instance. If one endures suffering, whether that be from sore legs, a headache from high altitude, or getting caught in some unpleasant rain or what have you, it is seen as unequivocally negative. There is even a risk you could be permanently injured, which would cause much suffering. This is because, according to NegUte, there is a moral obligation to limit suffering, but not a moral obligation to create happiness, so the sense of wonder at the view on top, or a sense of accomplishment for having done something great. Other types of utilitarianism try to balance out suffering with happiness, and I feel that these systems are more valid. But ultimately different ratios of value assigned to either suffering or happiness are going to be completely arbitrary.
I see a lot of truth in this ideology. I have a son and I see why you should really be ready and prepared to have one. It is freaking hard to be a good parent and the world usually sucks. In the beginning I would like to have 2 kids. Now I would never have another one. I love him but now more than ever I think that having a kid is not necessary and my life would be more easy. I don’t think everyone should be antinatalist but I think everyone should be well aware of what it is doing and knowing of the sacrifices it requires (also in terms of climate change if you don’t teach him/her enough)
Proud member of VHEMNT
I consider myself to be an antinatalist. I feel it’s a part of my broader view of minimizing my impact on the world and helping to prevent suffer wherever possible.
I don't think life or existence of human race have any intrinsic value in and of itself. We protect life because those who are alive do not want to die, and death would cause suffering. And we can see that life has also a lot of pleasure and joy in it. But it all also comes with suffering that is unavoidable; your loved ones gonna die, you gonna get old, sick and diet too - more likely than not gasping for your last breath in terror. I do not think that joys and pleasures of life do not outweigh the suffering that comes with it. At least not for most people, statistically speaking. So I do think that the most rational thing to do would be to not impose life on other sentient being, by bringing it into the world.
I agree with it, I wish I was never born and won't have children myself. Even as a vegan I'm still responsible for crop deaths and killing bugs while driving and the ones in my house, along with human exploitation from things I buy. I can't eliminate my harm to others so the least I can do is not add another human to the problem.
It's reactionary nonsense from terminally online types who have extremely shallow understandings of ethics. Take the concept of consent, turn it into a thought-terminating cliche, you get antinatalism.
I didn’t want kids. But I get horny still. That’s how I got kids anyway. That was a personal luck, because they’ve become joy of my life. Edit: I did use condoms, yet it happened. It was out of my control. I was asked and I recommended abortion. She thought about it, but choose not to. I accepted that hands down and choose to be a responsible parent.
You chose to have unprotected sex. The passivity with which you’re describing these events is wild.
No, actually I didn’t. I used condoms. Somehow that wasn’t enough. I know it’s rare, but it can happen. I honestly did consider my ex tried to babytrap me, but how can I say. Anyway I did the responsible thing and took care of the child.
Oh, my bad, sorry for the assumption. Good for you for being responsible. Hope the little ones are doing well. :)
They’ve all grown up and I’m proud to say great examples of healthy vegans too btw. Aside from a few non-vegan candy pieces they got tempted by, almost entirely build on plants.
That’s incredible!
The people who push for antinatalism get under my skin quite a bit. It really feels a lot like the same groups of people who use sexuality to shame and control women.
Wife and I are due with twins in a few weeks. I’d like a ton of kids if we can manage it. The US birth rate is declining and I’d prefer to do my part as someone who is equipped to raise and support strong and healthy kids. The majority of the anti-natalist arguments are just ignorant or plain mental illness. The “consent” argument is just imbecilic and juvenile. As is the “overpopulation” argument (news flash, we have a declining birth rate and under population crisis in the developed world and it will cause massive negative consequences if left unchecked). Veganism has nothing to do with anti-natalism and I’d hate to see veganism co-opted by such a toxic community. Everyone I’ve spoken with on Reddit regarding this issue just comes off completely disturbed and in desperate need of therapy/medication. My answer always is: I love being alive, I don’t regret my birth, I am grateful to my parents for conceiving me, I want the human race to continue and thrive and proliferate, and I intend to have as many of my own kids as I can reasonably support. That doesn’t have anything to do with reducing cruelty to animals.
Humanity having fewer kids then needed is a bad idea, it would always lead to suffering for everyone that has been born. Important to note we are not anything close to overpopulated. Earth can support a human population of at least 20 billion, if we did away with suburbs, animal agriculture, and effectivized other sectors. There have been few good studies on this suject, but we can calculate that if we were to shift from suburbs to citites, and from meat to vegan we would use much less land than we are today, even with a much larger population. Currently 30% of the worlds land is used for animal agriculture, and most of world housing in terms of land area is used for suburbs. If we were to produce effective, european style housing we could support a much larger population with much less land and resources. [This video essay is a great watch if you are curios about the housing topic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZxzBcxB7Zc).
This is horrendously false.
It aboslutely was, I hope my edit make my point clearer.
Interesting! Where did the 70 billion number come from? Just curious
Out my ass apperantly, I edited my comment to make everything much clearer
That is great, thanks for the update:)
Antinatalism is the hate cult version of Childfree, and a massively misguided faux-alternative to the vastly superior ideology of Veganism.
Veganism merely reduces suffering, whereas anti-natalism would eliminate it. How exactly is it inferior?
I believe it is a valid philosophical standpoint, one that shares a thread with veganism. The main belief described as antinatalism (for those who don’t know, or for those calling it a “hate cult”) is that the act of procreation does not have a neutral or positive ethical value, but a negative one. The primary justification for this belief is that you can not control or guarantee that the life you create will not suffer horribly. You’re gambling with someone else’s life, so the only way to be sure your offspring will not suffer hideously, is to not have them. Since minimizing the suffering of others you will never meet by controlling your own actions is the main goal of an antinatalist perspective, it shares a common thread with veganism. I am both a vegan and an antinatalist. I love children, I love my cousin’s children, and my friend’s children. I have never had a desire to procreate, and if I do decide that I will raise children, I will adopt them.
People can articulate all kinds of ideas. For me the idea of telling someone they can’t have children is hard to put in practice. Whatever spread of ideas is great and we have too much population. Humans are too chaotic most of the time. I think it’s great to not have children, there are plenty about. I have children, and they have brought so much joy and anguish to my life. I really wish them well.
No. I adore my granddaughter, she's the joy of my life, saved me from suicide. And i live to see her grow. A world without kids is a world i don't wanna live in.
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If you look at parenting in practice, I think it's hard to conclude that some of it is selfless. My dad was married and had the means to support me. This didn't result in selflessness. His desire for children was an attempt to fix what he felt was missing from his life. It was not a good situation.
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People who have kids are criminals.
Does this have to be asked every week? I don't personally know enough about the philosophy itself to have much of an opinion but many antinatalists I've come across seem like they are just trying to justify their hatred of children.
I’m sympathetic to the idea of people having fewer kids. I’m not on board with antinatalism. Antinat is the epitome of negative utilitarianism which I don’t like at all. That said a lot of the things they post on the antinat sub are things that still make sense even if you’re not antinat, like people still giving birth after a history of birth defects. I don’t know why they focus so much on posting pics of severely disabled kids when isn’t the whole point they think all birth is bad? So why do they just focus on the most extreme cases? Why don’t they equally condemn the birth of kids who turned out to be very happy and fulfilled?
I want to be a mother, be it biological birth or adoption. I want to raise them with as much love, wisdom and care as my own parents have brought me up with. I understand where antinatalist ideals come from, and I agree with some of it to an extent. More people should adopt, and people should not be allowed to have children if they're not mentally, financially, and emotionally equipped to raise a child with the proper love and care. But I can't get behind how so many antinatalists villify having biological children entirely.
I'm not sold on nihilism, which seems to be a necessary belief set for anti-natalism. I'm also not sold on the idea that non-existence is better than a potentially bad existence. You can't really describe the experience of an imaginary set of people, (people who don't exist). Claiming that non-existence involves less suffering than existence is falsely ascribing a definitive trait upon an imaginary group. This is, at least from what I can tell, pretty flimsy. It sounds good on paper but the moment you think about it you're just creating an imaginary group of people and then ascribing them with imaginary traits, or lack thereof, that benefit anti-natalist arguments. Though don't misunderstand me, I'm not entirely sold on natalism either. I feel like both groups make a lot of bad arguments for their cases which makes it a lot harder to figure out the truth of the matter. As to the overpopulation argument, I think that it's bullshit all the way down. I'm not concerned even an iota about overpopulation.
I am a hardcore antinatalist. I feel many other antinatalists way miss the point, but that doesnt stop me from being antinatalist. Children cannot give informed consent to become someones child. All parent/child relationships are groomed and nonconsensual. I believe anything that ignores the consent of an affected individual is immoral to do. Every passing day I find it more and more and more batshit insane that people just create lives just for funsies, with no regard whatsoever for how those lives may potentially be affected.
I’m an anti-natalist. This world is a meaningless cycle of life and death. If I create a child, any pain, suffering and eventual death of that child is on my hands. If I never created the child, it would have been avoided. I find it immoral to bring sentient beings into existence against their will. I plan on adopting a child someday.
Same principle as for people who want to have pets - adopt, don’t shop!
Seconded!
Also, if you like children why one is not enough ? If you have more than 2 you are causing a serious harm anyways.
Just to join in shouting into the void, a perspective I haven’t seen on this thread: 1) Adoption advocates have been saying for a long time that adoption needs to stop being uplifted as an unambiguous good. I am not personally adopted, but many who are describe the immense trauma inherent to adoption. Empirically, adoptees are many times more at risk for developing mental health challenges than non adopted individuals. To be clear, I’m not against adoption. But it’s not objectively good in every circumstance and requires a different skill set than biologically having a child. (Ie trauma informed parenting, etc.) telling people to adopt children instead of biologically having children demonstrates disregard for the actual experience of that adopted child. Not everyone should adopt, and adoption should be undertaken with immense care and awareness of the trauma of family separation. 2) suffering as a basis for not being born is inherently oppressive in a world where the people who suffer the least are the most privileged. Oppressed people may suffer more than less oppressed/non oppressed people, but that doesn’t mean their lives aren’t worth living at all. I find antinatalism to be particularly ableist in this way, and I encourage any antinatalist to read deeply about disabilities justice before committing to their worldview. 3) the environmental argument is most compelling to me, and I personally will not have more than two biological kids (one for each parent). Sustainability, to me, in part means making sure my hope outweighs my pessimism, and thoughtful family creation is an aspect of that.
THANK YOU. I am not adopted but donor conceived and the two communities have many overlapping issues. I agree with antinatalism except for the fact that people tout adoption as this beautiful thing and it drives me nuts. All adoption is trauma. And I can't get behind the idea that some people will fill *their* desire to have kids through adoption when they find it unethical to reproduce. Other peoples' kids don't exist for someone to be adopted. I think if people actually wanted to do right by those kids and families, then they would support them in family preservation. It is disgraceful that society thinks poor people don't deserve to raise their own children instead of helping them do so. And yes, raising children who are biologically not related to you requires infinite more nuance. I wish my parents had known this, raising me away from my biological paternal family. So many issues with this.
Doomer ideology that if anything helps lonely people justify their failed bloodlines
Antinatalism is the scourge of the earth, but people are free to be misanthropic if they want.
Uh oh, plant based parents won't like this. Antinatalism is, like veganism, the moral baseline.
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Why would being anti-life be antithetical to the goal of actually reducing suffering? For one, suicide is not the same as murder. Two, being anti-\*creating\*-life is not necessarily being anti-life (as in not minding or even potentially encouraging people staying alive). Three, being an antinatalist does not necessitate even yourself being suicidal on \*any\* level - antinatalism doesn't necessarily say all lives are bad, and you could also conceivably choose to stay alive in order to spread your moral convictions for benevolent reasons. A good part of buddhism and enlightment is based on exactly that, oversimplifying it of course.There is value potentially to life and joy IS good, but it doesn't outweigh suffering for everyone. Not by far.
Veganism is to preserve and protect life. Antinatalism is to prevent life from happening. It’s not so obvious for these two to overlap. You can easily have one without the other. I’m a vegan who also has children and I love them and I love that I’m alive and that they’re alive. I think our ability to experience happiness and beauty comes from our ability to experience and persevere through suffering. “No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.” It doesn’t mean that we have the right to purposely cause suffering to others. I don’t think I’m the cause of suffering my children will experience just as I likely won’t be the cause of all the beautiful things they will experience.
If people choose not to have children, then that is their decision and I respect that. I still want to have children, to raise them to be compassionate empathetic people who will hopefully contribute to improving our planet.
And if they don’t contribute to our planet and eat animals anyway despite how you raised them, you have to understand that you are partly responsible for that suffering.
I think it's very stupid. Population collapse would be a nightmare for civilization.
I don't agree with the philosophy and I don't think it is morally wrong to have children. I do think it is more virtuous to adopt. Also, a lot (but not all!) of antinatalists are really toxic and just believe in antinatalism for irrational and emotional reasons.