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  • you do understand that the joker is in the wrong here, right? like in this scene he's a mentally i'll man saying that killing people is funny.

    if you genuinely believe that existence has an inherent negative value then i strongly suggest you seek help, and i don't mean that to be facetious. antinatalism is depression turned into a moral philosophy, it posits itself as a solution to suffering by offering an unrealizable future, but really it's an excuse to not even attempt to make the world better.

    • Memes are generally divorced from their original source. This format is only used to show the creator has a controversial idea.

    • antinatalism is depression turned into a moral philosophy

      Not necessarily. Antinatalism and other pessimistic points of view can be held by non-depressed people. On the internet, it seems like psychological pessimism is the same as philosophical pessimism as many depressed people do adopt these points of view and flood the forums. Adding to that, they often abandon their philosophical pessimism when their depression lifts, leaving a testimony that it is true: only depressed people defend these ideas. But we need only an example of a person that is not depressed and still values antinatalism on its own to demonstrate that your statement is not the case, and I think I might be that example. Many other examples might be found in universities. I hope one day we get a formal social study so that I do not have to give anecdotal "evidence" and personal information.

      Now, I'd add to defend those I know that are indeed depressed, we should be debating and trying to refute the philosophy itself. Even if depression is leading them into these kinds of thoughts, we cannot say that this disproves their ideas. Many brilliant discoveries and inventions were reached in what we classify as pathological states. The manic researcher and crafter is an archetype for a reason (e.g., mad scientist, mad artist), and we have not fewer examples of depressed people that made valuable work, such as author F. Dostoevsky. There are two books that are coming to my mind that explain why (specifically) mood disorders are pathological but still let people do great things: A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illnesses and Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. So, as I was saying, the fact that someone is clinically depressed does not inform us about how true or how solid their ideas might be. Discrediting them just because they suffer from depression would be an ad hominem, and, in the moral part, ableism. We need to listen to/read their ideas and discuss the ideas instead.

      it posits itself as a solution to suffering by offering an unrealizable future

      This is a very misunderstood part of antinatalism. Almost no antinatalist is utopic in their views, that is, few antinatalists think that the point must be to cease all reproduction and that antinatalism fails if they don't. That would be an ideal scenario; there's no suffering without existence, but that is a dream. There are no goals for many antinatalists, just the idea that bringing children into this world is not ethically correct. They might follow antinatalism and not have children or adopt, but not preach much about it because they know practically no one will listen. I, for instance, bring this problem to people that might have not thought about it before. If they go ahead and have children, I'd still think that was not correct, but well, nothing to do but to help take care of this new life. It can be as pragmatic as that.

      but really it's an excuse to not even attempt to make the world better.

      No. In my case, I try to help in other ways. This right here is an example as I'm trying to broaden the discussion around these topics in a healthy way because I know Reddit has sadly damaged these debates with a lot of insults and bad attitudes from many sides. They insult people, so these people go to their subreddit and insult them back... It is not a good way to first learn about these topics, and many are learning what antinatalism is first on Reddit. I hope Lemmy will be slightly better.

      Anyway, I also try to better the world in the ways I can. Still, as a person that values philosophical pessimism, I think we are only saving lives from a neverending fire, or giving palliatives for an incurable disease. I enjoy my life and I try to help others enjoy theirs as much as this existence lets us.

      If anything, philosophies around negative utilitarianism, preference utilitarianism, overall pessimism, etc. tend to respect others a lot and value their suffering negatively. That's usually their point. Suffering is not a "necessary side for pleasure" or "a trial from which we gain something" or "something not that bad" or any explanation different cultures have given. Suffering is bad; in a better world, it wouldn't exist like this. It is tragic, but it is reality, so we must face it and combat suffering as best as we can. I'd say these ethical paths inspire protection of others more than others less centered on sentience.

      Finally, it is good advice to seek professional help, but not on the sole basis of someone being an antinatalist. If our OP here is depressed, I do recommend visiting a professional.

      • when i say that it's depression turned into philosophy i mean it in the sense that it is a philosophy that will inevitably lead to depression, or at the very least a skewed world view (think you'll see a red car and you're going to spot a lot of red cars, think existence is suffering and you'll probably focus on suffering a lot).

        interesting breakdown tho, i'm glad that you still have hope. i dislike antinatalism and similar philosophies mostry due to their "doomerism" and belief that experiences are somehow cumulative

  • This is why religious people outnumber us.

    • In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace

      One of the problems with the historical Christian system, particularly in the US, is that its predicated on people living in the same place and going to the same church intergenerationally. As people are forced to migrate in order to find employment, they become untethered from their heritage church sites and the attendant communities that added real value to church membership.

      The hyper-capitalization of the modern American Protestant movement hasn't helped, either. Very hard for the Southern Baptists to maintain participation when GenX, Millennial, and Zoomer cohorts no longer want to live in these heavily religious communities. They move to areas that don't have these highly active and Christian-dense neighborhoods. They fall out of the hyper-religious social circles. And they lose touch with the media and culture that ultimately drive these religious groups insane.

      Meanwhile, the low housing prices and the increasingly finance and tech focused economic sectors are bringing in large numbers of religiously rivalrous migrant populations. The most common new religious constructions in the US are Mosques thanks to a large influx of Arab, Persian, and East African migrants. And because migrant populations and religious builders love cheap land, they're often showing up in and around declining Christian communities.

      If you're out living in LA or Tampa or Houston and you're wondering why folks in Peoria, Indiana or Chattanooga, Tennessee or Tulsa, Oklahoma are losing their fucking minds over the super-scary illegal immigrant / Radical Islamic invasion, this is a big reason why. Their kids are all leaving for the coasts while lots of unseasonably tan people are showing up to take their place.

  • It's only encouraged because if people stop having children, it breaks the system, an utterly shit system which apparently can't be fixed fast enough if people stop having children so we better go full speed ahead on a the most moronically large scale sunk cost calamity that is going to hit us like a brick wall along with all the other things piling up.

    • if people stop having children, it breaks the system

      The overriding fear I've seen is that not enough white children are being born. And as the definition and context of whiteness shifts, this inspires varying degrees of alarm and hatred. A big part of the current Israel/Palestine conflict stems from the demographically older and more infertile Israelis believing they need to cap the younger and more virile Palestinian population by any means necessary (including the current genocide).

      So it isn't even that "people stop having children", but the "right" people not having the "correct" kind of children.

      we better go full speed ahead on a the most moronically large scale sunk cost calamity that is going to hit us like a brick wall

      Sort of the dirty secret about climate change is that its got nothing to do with population size. Enormous amounts of natural resources and carbon emissions are being produced by vanishingly small portions of the population. The whole AI project has been a fossil fuel hog. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan consumed phenomenal volumes of material for the benefit of an infinitesimal sliver of the planet's residents. Reliance on disposable plastics and love of enormous cars has nothing to do with the number of children we've been having.

      Anti-natalism is completely divorced from ecological sustainability. In many ways, it is rooted in this delusion that we're all living in these remote rural settings with an infinite frontier to exploit forever. And that mentality emerges most forcefully in places that don't have these dense urban populations.

      • I love how your second quote literally and purposely leaves off the last part so you can fuel your argument better. Some people don't need to be misinformed, they do it to themselves!

        Overpopulation is not "anti-natalism", overpopulation is literally a known and measured problem of biological populations, but some people like to make-believe that it doesn't apply to humans. Cue "but population really is falling (except not really because we keep bringing immigration from places with lower quality of life and then complain when ours continues to be lowered)" when it itself is an indication that we are reaching the limits and yet are still trying to push past them.

        As an aside, lol at new labels like "anti-natalism" showing up that stereotype arguments launched against them, it reminds me of how the GQP has adopted their "woke"-ness label just because it gave them a term to band things that had existed for ages under. I'm sure "antinatalism" will serve as well - not blaming you for it, just realized the term was being paraded around and that it will work out just about as well as "woke".

        Yes, I'm sure the consequences would be horrible if we stopped, but that's the thing, being already in a shit load of trouble if you pull out is sort of a prerequisite of sunk cost fallacies.

    • Yes, common objections are that the economy could crash or that humanity could go extinct. I don't think these are good objections, and I have different reasons. It seems like a bad "an end justifies the means" way of thinking sometimes.

      Honestly, the economic crash one is weird. The logic is that we must sacrifice our present and immediate future (that happens to be millions of lives) so that other lives are better (supposedly). Huh? It reminds me of the argument I heard against prohibiting animals in circuses. They argue that the animals that were in the circuses at the time would be slaughtered or abandoned, so their logic was allowing more and more years of animals suffering inside the circuses. What? Yes, the change definitely hurt, but it was possible both to fight against their slaughter and abandonment, and to get rid of that abuse forever. If we decrease in population, of course it will be difficult, but we can find ways to face the difficulties while we get into a better system. We cannot preserve capitalism just because we are afraid of hard times, when capitalism itself is hurting us.

      The extinction one is different. We won't get to that point, but even if we did, it would be a free decision of humanity that is hurting no one else. That's the intuition they probably have: that those humans would be hurting the ones that do not exist yet, but I already commented about that reasoning. I don't think there's harm against the non-existant. Our end is possibly inevitable because the habitable Universe seems to have an end. If we decide to fight it, that's okay as long as we do it ethically. But if we collectively decide to end it all, I respect it as long as it's done ethically too. Anyway, as I said, this is mere imagination as I do not see humanity (in the big numbers we now are) never ever choosing this path together. We will be here for some time.

  • this comment section is a hell of a ride, but i'll just state what seems to be a pretty significant thing that everyone just merrily sails past:

    Y'all remember that saying of "it takes a village to raise a child"? That's why modern parenting sucks, we don't tend to have villages to help raise our children anymore. We're not meant to raise kids with maybe at best our partner and some assistance from their grandparents and kindergarden/school, we're meant to share that load and responsibility among like at least a dozen people and kids are meant to constantly have access to other kids to play with and collectively learn what boundaries are.

306 comments