4 ms·
I don't understand this space of what I can only term ecological or economic antinatalism. Can you share your thoughts on the following? Do you think unbeing i
by nataliste 3y ago
I don't understand this space of what I can only term ecological or economic antinatalism. Can you share your thoughts on the following?
Do you think unbeing is preferable to a potentially miserable life that would still likely result in them having their own children that didn't experience their own level of suffering? How many generations of potential suffering is required before having children is off the table? How many n+ future generations of having potentially joyful and regenerating lives would offset the former generations of suffering?
What level or type of disaster would trigger it? Would you have had kids if you knew that the Black Death was coming or, being a Roman citizen, that the Roman Empire was going to fall? If you were a European in 1920, fully knowing the outcome of WWII, would you intentionally have kids? What if you only had models that these things were coming in a fuzzy way?
My father-in-law told me don't have kids. My brother-in-law sees climate change as catastrophic to any progeny, and my best friend views human life itself as an involuntary evil inflicted on children, but I have difficulties understanding their positions on an intuitive level. I get the reasoning on a rational level, but I don't have the gut-sense of it and it hurts my relationship with my family and friends.
Like, my position is that I'd like to think that I'd undergo torture for my kids, and that my kids would do so likewise for theirs recursively until the number of generations outnumbered the stars. From what I can see, living-on is the only thing that actually lasts--everything else will fall away, improve, and fall away again, including what we mean by being human itself, but procreation is forever.
How can I understand your perspective? Can I understand it? It would help me build stronger bridges if you (or anyone else) could help me intuitively picture it.