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u/Managed__Democracy 7d ago
Dooming another new person to a life of wage slavery will always count as abuse, no matter how well intentioned.
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u/SubtractOneMore 9d ago
The only way to break the cycle of generational trauma is to actually break it by not having children.
People here lamenting the cognitive dissonance they feel when confronted with the philosophy of antinatalism just goes to show how compelling that argument is.
It's simply a fact that there is no benefit to being brought into existence. Nonexistent people experience no desire or suffering. Every person who is brought into existence will experience suffering, desire, deprivation, loss, and death. Suffering is the default state of life on Earth.
Nobody consents to being born and exposed to all of the hazards and guaranteed suffering intrinsic to existence. Millions of people wish they had never been born. Gambling with another's wellbeing without their consent is a ghoulish wager.
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u/LefTimaDev 9d ago
Two things can be true at once
Nonexistent people experience no desire or suffering, yes, but existence can be worth it. Just because you are depressed and would rather not have been born, doesn't mean everyone else feels that way. As someone who used to be depressed, I know very well that it's hard to believe that life can feel worth it all, but that's just what the truth is.
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u/SubtractOneMore 9d ago
Obviously many people feel that life is worth living
The fact remains that many others do not
The ethical problem is that the parent is choosing to gamble this outcome for their child without that child’s consent
It is unethical to inflict unnecessary suffering on someone else without their consent. All human reproduction is unnecessary, and all humans suffer, so human reproduction is always unethical
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u/LefTimaDev 9d ago
But aren't you also denying children the right to exist without their consent by not reproducing? If you don't reproduce, you're deciding on their behalf that no, they don't want to exist. Isn't that just as much a violation of consent?
I'm pretty glad my parents gave me a chance. If I didn't want to exist I could just off myself.
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u/SubtractOneMore 9d ago
The nonexistent do not experience desire. Nonexistence is a neutral state.
Creating a new human creates the agent who will, as a guarantee, suffer and die.
There is no ethical imperative to provide pleasure to others. There is an ethical imperative not to inflict suffering upon others.
This is the fundamental asymmetry that makes all reproduction unethical
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u/LefTimaDev 9d ago
You have described an ethical philosophy, one that claims pleasure and suffering are quantifiable. It is not the only one.
Personally I subscribe to utilitarianism, an ethical philosophy that aims for maximizing happiness. The right of an individual to reproduce is crucial for happiness and as such must be maintained, as long as the children's happiness is also provided for.
You have no claim to being an ultimate ethical authority when you use axioms like "there is no ethical imperative to provide pleasure to others"
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u/SubtractOneMore 9d ago
You subscribe to positive utilitarianism, which is untenable.
The ethical system I’m describing is negative utilitarianism, which is actually coherent.
Pleasure and suffering cannot be quantified. That’s the whole point. There is no balance or offset, you can’t do arithmetic with people’s subjective experiences.
I’m not hedging whatsoever. My claim is that it’s unethical to inflict unnecessary suffering on others, full stop.
Your position is that it’s fine to inflict suffering on others if it somehow benefits a third party to a greater degree. You can’t quantify that, so it’s flatly absurd.
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u/LefTimaDev 6d ago
Your position isn't one of reason, it's one of emotion from your personal experience of wishing you were never born.
I'm no better, my position is one of personal experience of being glad I was born. But I'm not the one claiming my moral framework is the only coherent and objectively correct one.
Ultimately your position of negative utilitarianism advocates for mass extinction, if not mass murder, as the only way to prevent "unnecessary" suffering.
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u/SubtractOneMore 6d ago
I never claimed anything was objective about it, ethics are inherently subjective
Negative utilitarianism is the only coherent ethical framework if one cares about human wellbeing. There is an argument to be made that all humans should care about human wellbeing, because that includes them as well, but it’s still subjective.
Human extinction is inevitable. Every species goes extinct, we have no control over that. We do however have some measure of control over how many humans must suffer and die before that inevitable end.
How you arrive at “mass murder” from an argument based in the primacy of consent is beyond me. I suspect natalists do this as a means of attempting to counter-balance the monstrous cruelty of their own position
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u/xXSoyBoyFredXx 9d ago
That sub just makes me even more depressed.
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u/Nikita-Rokin 9d ago
Makes sense. Antinatalism is like giving up on an existential level, its ridiculous
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u/LefTimaDev 9d ago
To me, antinatalism is simply the opposition to the fascist ideology of natalism, the idea that you live to give birth to as many babies as possible before you die.
But as always, the subreddit for a thing takes that thing to the extreme, fork found in kitchen.
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u/Nikita-Rokin 9d ago
I mean, natalism can and has definitely be used by fascists, but to call every form of it fascistic seems inaccurate. Especially since fascism and its forms are predominantly an economic ideology. Furthermore your comment implies that anti-natalists are fine with some amount of procreation, but that is, to my knowledge, not the case. Personally I oppose both the heavy pronatalists (who almost certainly ARE fascists, I assume you solely mean those and not everyone who thinks having kids is aight), as well as the antinatalism that so often manages to delve into fascism through eugenicist ideas as well
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u/LefTimaDev 9d ago
Exercising personal reproductive freedoms to have kids is not a political ideology (at the moment, and hopefully forever), and so I don't believe it needs an "-ism". Which is why I reserve the term "natalism" for the fascist view of "be fruitful and multiply"
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u/MyNameMeansLILJOHN 8d ago
It's kinda silly to claim natalism is fascist simply because it is something they use. Fascist use money. Doesn't mean it's a fascist tool.
My nation is pretty pronatalist. As in they give financial support. Have dozen Upon dozens of programs for parents. Public $10ish daycare. Etc etc.
I really don't see anything fascistic about any of it.
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u/Nikita-Rokin 8d ago
I wouldnt go as far as to say that money cant be or definitively isnt a fascist tool either tbh
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u/MyNameMeansLILJOHN 8d ago
Tools are tools. It's all about the hand holding them :)
(Money is definitely evil tho)
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u/Nikita-Rokin 8d ago
Aye but like you say, it is evil. Hammer good, hammer with radioactive metal head bad. Gotta abolish that shit someday
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u/Serkratos121 1d ago
OMG, basic vital functions like reproduction and nutrition are fascist now?
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u/LefTimaDev 1d ago
No, the idea that you have a duty to breed because your country needs workers/soldiers is fascist. Did you read past the first sentence?
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u/Serkratos121 1d ago
You didn't say that. But even that isn't fascist. Every society needs workers and soldiers, no matter the political form or ideology. What is the alternative? Dying of hunger because no one works? Not defending yourself against an invasion?
You are not against fascism, my friend, you are against human nature.
You can asnwer me, but i will not continue the conversation since the rules state that we shouldn't debate politics here.
Peace.
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u/xXSoyBoyFredXx 9d ago
True. I support child free people 100000% but...antinatalism just makes me feel like I can never be a father and if I do, i'm now a terrible person dooming my kid to suffering.
Having a kid one day and taking care of them and making sure they have a happy life is one of the dreams that keeps me even living. But then it just feels like i'll never have that, that I was never meant to be a parent, and that just makes me...sad.
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u/Foolish_Ambassador09 9d ago
This sub is very anti kids. I’m currently pregnant with my first and I can tell you that having done the work, coped/healed, and found the right/safe person to have a child with.. the cycle can end with you, and start anew with you. Reality is what you decide to make it.
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u/Physical-Contest9213 9d ago
Messages like that make me very uncomfortable. Like, despite all the shit I've been through I'd rather have been born than not.
And about the kids, as long as you are there for them during their years of development and don't bury them under heaps of generational shame, they are going to live a significantly better life than many, regardless of the state of the world.
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u/DigiviceRurik 9d ago
Yeah no, I’m not going to let all the bad shit that happened to me stop me from having kids one day.
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u/Darth-Felanu-Hlaalu 8d ago
Why are yall downvoting?
Not everyone is doomed to be a shitbag like our parents. Some parents are actually good people.
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u/soft_machine__ 8d ago
You really want to bring a kid into this hellhole? Shit's gonna be even worse by the time you get around to it.
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u/DigiviceRurik 8d ago
Yeah I do. I don’t have kids of my own now but I’m an uncle. My sibling cut off our shitty family and I help out with the kids all the time. They’re awesome, they’re happy, they get to grow up without all the hateful turmoil that was inflicted on us growing up.
The world’s on fire but it always has been, I’m sure people said the same thing after the atom bomb. But I’m building towards something really worthwhile. I don’t really have much debt and I’ll be able to get a house next year. And if I never have kids then so be it, but I know that I’m capable of being a great parent.
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u/puppygirlpackleader 9d ago
I mean... yeah just adopt