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I've never heard of this guy, but his views overlap with many of my own. It's heartening to see that he was able to make something of himself despite the unpop

I've never heard of this guy, but his views overlap with many of my own. It's heartening to see that he was able to make something of himself despite the unpopular perspectives he held. In particular, I feel that antinatalism is a hard thing to express to others without it coming across as a personal affront to all who decide to bring children into the world.

lwansbrough 7y ago
It must be a really awful existence to view the world with such pessimism.
- omarchowdhury 7y ago
  His pessimism caused by his inability to view the world.
  - lwansbrough 7y ago
    Perhaps. Although I’m sure a blind person would say they’d like to be able to see, I bet they’d also tell you there’s much more beauty to the world than what can be seen.
  - RankingMember 7y ago
    I think the world is beautiful. I love nature and everything in it. What I don't think is beautiful is the destruction of this world by overpopulation and selfishness. Edit: >Overpopulation is a meme. Many first-world countries today are literally seeking to import more immigrants because of under-population. Their being a need for more humans to meet human ends is not surprising, but it certainly doesn't make an argument for the necessity of more humans from any ecological perspective. > Besides, humans are natural too. It's not like we're built in factories and have smokestacks on our heads. We ARE part of that world which you think is beautiful, and to end human reproduction would be to partly destroy this world. This logic doesn't compute for me. Is your perspective that, by definition, anything humans do is natural? If so, I think we have a fundamental disagreement on the definition of "natural". I don't think that packing the Earth to the gills with humans at the expense of other species survival is in any way a positive development.
    - xamuel 7y ago
      >the destruction of this world by overpopulation and selfishness Overpopulation is a meme. Many first-world countries today are literally seeking to import more immigrants because of under-population. Besides, humans are natural too. It's not like we're built in factories and have smokestacks on our heads. We ARE part of that world which you think is beautiful, and to end human reproduction would be to partly destroy this world.
    - sudosteph 7y ago
      Heads up - it's considered poor form to edit your previous reply like this rather than responding directly to comment below. That said, are you claiming that life only has value if there exists some "ecological necessity" for it? Because I just don't see enough consistency in any definition of "ecological necessity" to make it a meaningful term. Ecology has shifted dramatically throughout earth's history - any species you could have called "ecological necessary" in the jurassic era doesn't seem so necessary in the long-run judging by the multitude of life that continued after extinction events.
      - RankingMember 7y ago
        Agreed. Strangely the reply button was missing when I went to reply to the other comment. I'm claiming that humanity should not be held so supremely important that in the name of blind procreation we should be displacing and bringing to extinction other forms of life and potentially bringing the habitability of the planet for all life into question.
    - Cyph0n 7y ago
      > I think the world is beautiful. I love nature and everything in it. What I don't think is beautiful is the destruction of this world by overpopulation and selfishness. Isn't it also selfish to prevent your children from experiencing its beauty? To smell a flower, to touch and be touched, to experience love, to feel the joy of truly understanding something - the list is truly endless! Besides, our primary job is to ensure the continued existence of the human race, and the first and most important step in that process is to bring new humans into this world. Yes, I agree: there are other factors to consider when making this decision, and honestly, I don't judge you either way. The way I look it is that if we cease to give birth to new humans, we are guaranteed to go extinct, but there is no guarantee (yet!) that overpopulation or environmental abuse will cause a world ending event. The earth has gone through far more destructive eras and yet here we are! Ultimately, it is indeed a philosophical argument: does the risk of potential suffering outweigh the joys of experiencing life? I don't think so, at least not yet.
- RankingMember 7y ago
  Your statement is a good illustration of the kind of inertia one faces when attempting to argue against the status quo. One person's pessimism is another person's realism. I personally see the amount of humans on this planet as absurd, and don't see humankind's seemingly-innate "might is right", "manifest destiny" way of doing things thus far as something we should continue to mindlessly perpetuate.
  - willidiots 7y ago
    Zapffe's The Last Messiah is a good read on this topic if you're not already familiar.
    - RankingMember 7y ago
      Thanks, I'll check it out
Bakary 7y ago
It can only be a personal attack by its very nature, no matter how politely you approach the topic. If existence is a harm in itself, then it immediately follows that giving birth is unethical, unless you reject any notion of free will. If you do the latter, then antinatalism and pretty much any other school of philisophy becomes moot since there are no agents around that can make decisions or change their thoughts.
- RankingMember 7y ago
  I don't follow. If you buy a Camaro and I say "I don't like Camaros and don't think people should buy them", that's not a personal attack- it's an opinion. You have the agency to make your own decisions and I'm not impeding anyone from doing so (nor would I even if I had such power).
  - Bakary 7y ago
    In this case, it concerns sentient beings and personal responsibility towards those beings. Not to mention the inherent touchiness of the topic of reproduction. When you buy a Camaro, you aren't hurting anyone directly if we ignore pollution etc for the sake of the argument. To give a closer analogy, it's like saying that circumcision is a barbaric practice. It follows that you are implictly declaring that people who circumcize their kids have done something bad (doesn't mean you think they were solely responsible, or that the act was inexcusable/irrational on their part). If you deny this, then your initial statement was meaningless. Whether or not someone then takes offense is a different matter altogether.
    - RankingMember 7y ago
      People are entitled to their feelings, but so am I to mine. Any implicit declaration of wrongdoing is in their own heads, because I don't see humans (myself included) as some kind of infallible entity that is always right or wrong. Circumcision, in my opinion, is a barbaric and silly practice, but why should that matter to you if you chose to get your kid circumcised? You're you, and I'm me. We can think about things differently. If you're amenable to being convinced not to have some of your kid's penis chopped off, great. Otherwise, great too, you do you. You're not going around in a van circumcising people against their will nor am I forcing reconstructive surgery. The world is full of people with opinions that disagree with those you may hold closest. On a basic level, I don't understand why you'd be offended by someone else's opinion as long as they're not forcing it upon you/being a dick about it.
xamuel 7y ago
Just speaking purely secularly without getting into religious issues: antinatalism seems like a position that leads to untenable ends if you just follow its logic. For example, if you're really strict about antinatalism, you should be in favor of intentional nuclear holocaust of all life on earth, because that would get rid of the problem of babies being born into life of suffering. Surely you don't hold such an extreme view, though? Neither would you advocate that everyone ought to promptly commit suicide personally. Would you advocate for forced global sterilization?
- RankingMember 7y ago
  Any argument can be taken to a ridiculous extreme if you choose to bring it there. The line, for me, is where you try to make decisions for others/tell them what to do. It doesn't matter what opinion I hold- even if I was in some all-powerful position I wouldn't think for a second I could or should govern peoples' lives by my own opinions. For some reason it seems to be a common trend in discussion to think that simply holding a belief means you intend to impose it on others.
  - xamuel 7y ago
    You're right, I see now I set up a bit of a strawman there, thanks for pointing that out. So what concrete action do you advocate as a result of your opinion? Increased access to birth control? Or are you saying it's just strictly an opinion? In which case, how is it different than just electing not to have kids yourself? I think some people (including myself) might have the knee-jerk reaction that the main difference between antinatalism vs. just vanilla opting-out-of-parenthood, is that the former offers you a way to feel smug/holier-than-thou. What would you say in response to that knee-jerk reaction?
    - RankingMember 7y ago
      Certainly a good question. I would say I understand the knee-jerk reaction because there are many who trumpet their choice to not have children as though it's some kind of merit badge. "r/childfree" for instance on reddit is one such place where this sentiment is rampant, along with some weird kind of child hatred/being happy when children are unhappy. I think if we had a conversation you would see that I bring up my perspective (and I only do so if the context comes up) not to chide people or feel better than them, because I'm not. My intention is purely to make some small contribution to raising awareness of what our exponential population growth is doing and will continue to do to our planet. The end goal is for people to have one additional shred of a thought before they have a kid. Not to feel guilty, but just to give a micro-second of consideration to the planet and its other inhabitants' wellbeing before adding another human to it. That's it.
phaemon 7y ago
Certainly a difficult thing to convince your parents of. Not least if they agree.
- RankingMember 7y ago
  The scale of humanity at this point is practically beyond comprehension in a day-to-day context, so I can't imagine anyone will ever be able to look at their kids (even if they regret them otherwise) and say "yep, this is where we crossed the line, too many!".
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
d1zzy 7y ago
You don't even need to declare yourself as antinatalism, simply answering the simple question question of "do you have kids" with "my wife and I decided against that" seems enough to get most people on the defensive. As if my own life choices not matching theirs is some sort of threat or inherent criticism to their choices.

lwansbrough 7y ago

It must be a really awful existence to view the world with such pessimism.

omarchowdhury 7y ago
His pessimism caused by his inability to view the world.
- lwansbrough 7y ago
  Perhaps. Although I’m sure a blind person would say they’d like to be able to see, I bet they’d also tell you there’s much more beauty to the world than what can be seen.
- RankingMember 7y ago
  I think the world is beautiful. I love nature and everything in it. What I don't think is beautiful is the destruction of this world by overpopulation and selfishness. Edit: >Overpopulation is a meme. Many first-world countries today are literally seeking to import more immigrants because of under-population. Their being a need for more humans to meet human ends is not surprising, but it certainly doesn't make an argument for the necessity of more humans from any ecological perspective. > Besides, humans are natural too. It's not like we're built in factories and have smokestacks on our heads. We ARE part of that world which you think is beautiful, and to end human reproduction would be to partly destroy this world. This logic doesn't compute for me. Is your perspective that, by definition, anything humans do is natural? If so, I think we have a fundamental disagreement on the definition of "natural". I don't think that packing the Earth to the gills with humans at the expense of other species survival is in any way a positive development.
  - xamuel 7y ago
    >the destruction of this world by overpopulation and selfishness Overpopulation is a meme. Many first-world countries today are literally seeking to import more immigrants because of under-population. Besides, humans are natural too. It's not like we're built in factories and have smokestacks on our heads. We ARE part of that world which you think is beautiful, and to end human reproduction would be to partly destroy this world.
  - sudosteph 7y ago
    Heads up - it's considered poor form to edit your previous reply like this rather than responding directly to comment below. That said, are you claiming that life only has value if there exists some "ecological necessity" for it? Because I just don't see enough consistency in any definition of "ecological necessity" to make it a meaningful term. Ecology has shifted dramatically throughout earth's history - any species you could have called "ecological necessary" in the jurassic era doesn't seem so necessary in the long-run judging by the multitude of life that continued after extinction events.
    - RankingMember 7y ago
      Agreed. Strangely the reply button was missing when I went to reply to the other comment. I'm claiming that humanity should not be held so supremely important that in the name of blind procreation we should be displacing and bringing to extinction other forms of life and potentially bringing the habitability of the planet for all life into question.
  - Cyph0n 7y ago
    > I think the world is beautiful. I love nature and everything in it. What I don't think is beautiful is the destruction of this world by overpopulation and selfishness. Isn't it also selfish to prevent your children from experiencing its beauty? To smell a flower, to touch and be touched, to experience love, to feel the joy of truly understanding something - the list is truly endless! Besides, our primary job is to ensure the continued existence of the human race, and the first and most important step in that process is to bring new humans into this world. Yes, I agree: there are other factors to consider when making this decision, and honestly, I don't judge you either way. The way I look it is that if we cease to give birth to new humans, we are guaranteed to go extinct, but there is no guarantee (yet!) that overpopulation or environmental abuse will cause a world ending event. The earth has gone through far more destructive eras and yet here we are! Ultimately, it is indeed a philosophical argument: does the risk of potential suffering outweigh the joys of experiencing life? I don't think so, at least not yet.
RankingMember 7y ago
Your statement is a good illustration of the kind of inertia one faces when attempting to argue against the status quo. One person's pessimism is another person's realism. I personally see the amount of humans on this planet as absurd, and don't see humankind's seemingly-innate "might is right", "manifest destiny" way of doing things thus far as something we should continue to mindlessly perpetuate.
- willidiots 7y ago
  Zapffe's The Last Messiah is a good read on this topic if you're not already familiar.
  - RankingMember 7y ago
    Thanks, I'll check it out

Bakary 7y ago

It can only be a personal attack by its very nature, no matter how politely you approach the topic. If existence is a harm in itself, then it immediately follows that giving birth is unethical, unless you reject any notion of free will. If you do the latter, then antinatalism and pretty much any other school of philisophy becomes moot since there are no agents around that can make decisions or change their thoughts.

RankingMember 7y ago
I don't follow. If you buy a Camaro and I say "I don't like Camaros and don't think people should buy them", that's not a personal attack- it's an opinion. You have the agency to make your own decisions and I'm not impeding anyone from doing so (nor would I even if I had such power).
- Bakary 7y ago
  In this case, it concerns sentient beings and personal responsibility towards those beings. Not to mention the inherent touchiness of the topic of reproduction. When you buy a Camaro, you aren't hurting anyone directly if we ignore pollution etc for the sake of the argument. To give a closer analogy, it's like saying that circumcision is a barbaric practice. It follows that you are implictly declaring that people who circumcize their kids have done something bad (doesn't mean you think they were solely responsible, or that the act was inexcusable/irrational on their part). If you deny this, then your initial statement was meaningless. Whether or not someone then takes offense is a different matter altogether.
  - RankingMember 7y ago
    People are entitled to their feelings, but so am I to mine. Any implicit declaration of wrongdoing is in their own heads, because I don't see humans (myself included) as some kind of infallible entity that is always right or wrong. Circumcision, in my opinion, is a barbaric and silly practice, but why should that matter to you if you chose to get your kid circumcised? You're you, and I'm me. We can think about things differently. If you're amenable to being convinced not to have some of your kid's penis chopped off, great. Otherwise, great too, you do you. You're not going around in a van circumcising people against their will nor am I forcing reconstructive surgery. The world is full of people with opinions that disagree with those you may hold closest. On a basic level, I don't understand why you'd be offended by someone else's opinion as long as they're not forcing it upon you/being a dick about it.

xamuel 7y ago

Just speaking purely secularly without getting into religious issues: antinatalism seems like a position that leads to untenable ends if you just follow its logic. For example, if you're really strict about antinatalism, you should be in favor of intentional nuclear holocaust of all life on earth, because that would get rid of the problem of babies being born into life of suffering. Surely you don't hold such an extreme view, though? Neither would you advocate that everyone ought to promptly commit suicide personally. Would you advocate for forced global sterilization?

RankingMember 7y ago
Any argument can be taken to a ridiculous extreme if you choose to bring it there. The line, for me, is where you try to make decisions for others/tell them what to do. It doesn't matter what opinion I hold- even if I was in some all-powerful position I wouldn't think for a second I could or should govern peoples' lives by my own opinions. For some reason it seems to be a common trend in discussion to think that simply holding a belief means you intend to impose it on others.
- xamuel 7y ago
  You're right, I see now I set up a bit of a strawman there, thanks for pointing that out. So what concrete action do you advocate as a result of your opinion? Increased access to birth control? Or are you saying it's just strictly an opinion? In which case, how is it different than just electing not to have kids yourself? I think some people (including myself) might have the knee-jerk reaction that the main difference between antinatalism vs. just vanilla opting-out-of-parenthood, is that the former offers you a way to feel smug/holier-than-thou. What would you say in response to that knee-jerk reaction?
  - RankingMember 7y ago
    Certainly a good question. I would say I understand the knee-jerk reaction because there are many who trumpet their choice to not have children as though it's some kind of merit badge. "r/childfree" for instance on reddit is one such place where this sentiment is rampant, along with some weird kind of child hatred/being happy when children are unhappy. I think if we had a conversation you would see that I bring up my perspective (and I only do so if the context comes up) not to chide people or feel better than them, because I'm not. My intention is purely to make some small contribution to raising awareness of what our exponential population growth is doing and will continue to do to our planet. The end goal is for people to have one additional shred of a thought before they have a kid. Not to feel guilty, but just to give a micro-second of consideration to the planet and its other inhabitants' wellbeing before adding another human to it. That's it.

phaemon 7y ago

Certainly a difficult thing to convince your parents of. Not least if they agree.

RankingMember 7y ago
The scale of humanity at this point is practically beyond comprehension in a day-to-day context, so I can't imagine anyone will ever be able to look at their kids (even if they regret them otherwise) and say "yep, this is where we crossed the line, too many!".

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

d1zzy 7y ago

You don't even need to declare yourself as antinatalism, simply answering the simple question question of "do you have kids" with "my wife and I decided against that" seems enough to get most people on the defensive. As if my own life choices not matching theirs is some sort of threat or inherent criticism to their choices.