Having children is not life-affirming: it’s immoral (2017)
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- The worst pain is more bad than the greatest pleasure is good
- Satisfaction is fleeting
- Lifespan is limited and bad things happen more than they ideally ought to
- Humans cause ecological and social damage.
The point about ecological damage, and the existence of adoptable children, are both more reasonable critiques of "natalism". That is a nuanced topic worthy of discussion, but this article doesnt add much to the discourse there, more adding them as an afterthought to the overwrought "existence is pain" thesis.
Edit: formatting and clarity
Pure opinions such as this should, IMO, come with an argument for holding such a view, especially when presented as a statement of fact.
Which makes sense, logically. Fulfilling a human's basic needs involves world-wide supply chains filled with oil-guzzling vehicles. Fulfilling their entertainment needs requires even more of the same.
> A lot of our problems would be less pronounced of we simply reduced their scale.
The statement "we need fewer people" might still not hold of course, but is their supporting argument controversial enough to need further elaboration?
There is no need to be worried about overpopulation in the long run. If the trend continues we'll be extinct in a few thousand years.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/14/world/world-population-sh...
I get that their life sucks; but my kids are happy, just like me, and a universe without them is a poorer place. Also, their existence allows for indefinitely more descendants, the overwhelming majority of which will be happy to be alive.
As a capper, I have four kids, so I've MORE than replaced myself.
In polling, most people around the world rate themselves as “happy” or “very happy.” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-30629478. In Africa, a poor continent where many people experience suffering, 83% of people rate themselves as happy or very happy. The simplest things in life, including having children and forming families, makes people happy, regardless of the suffering that might also be a part of their life.
If you cut down on your sleeping too much, it'll make the rest of your life less joy-filled and more full of suffering.
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/sleep-is-the-mate-of-d...
Unless you're implying an argument from personal incredulity, it seems the quote in the 2nd paragraph of the article fully answers this question.
To call procreation immoral assumes some moral standard human beings have all agreed to, or one we are subject to whether we agree or not. No such moral standard exists. The dominant systems of morality throughout history have placed great value on life and having children, so on the whole it seems human beings have decided reproducing is not immoral. Hardly surprising since nature arrived at that “decision” without any moral question.
I have three children.
Under most circumstances you can bet that any given person would choose life, even in the face of extreme pain. If that person were to change their mind however, euthanasia should be an option, and that I could see an argument being made for it.
Now, to go back to nature just being what it is without morality, the argument that we're destroying the environment doesn't hold up when you remove people from the equation. I mean, sure you might actually fix a bunch of ecological problems from our current point of view but once we're gone, that value system ceases to exist. Earth doesn't care if there's blooming biodiversity living on its back or that the entire atmosphere might be filled with toxic smog. Those are only problems because we say they are problems.
To go and end the entire human race for that is probably the least likely sequence of events we can fathom. We're hardwired to survive, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
What a weird statement. Your life is literally exactly as good or as bad as you think it is.
By this rhetoric, life itself will one day end and since life is the source of all suffering, one might even argue hurrying along the process of destroying life. This I cannot get behind so I guess that makes me a pro-natalist.
Also dying at the same time, they'd never have to witness their loved ones die which brings emotional pain.
Now, hopefully most would see this as idiocy and immoral, but there's someone out there who's a closet Thanos, thinking this is a brilliant idea.
The problem is, even if we are spirits in a material world, as THE POLICE once sung, the only way out is non-existence, To stay in the game one has to accept the rules. And these rules are not moral. We are the descendants of survivors. And what they did to survive was what brought us here. So even if one accepts the arguments of Antinatalists and their like, and I do, most people won't. Simply because they are descendants of organisms, that did all to survive. It's simple, almost bordering to a tautology. That line of thought won't survive.
No, it's just the continued folly of the publish or die mantra of academia; this guy is a professor of philosophy and probably wrote that to cash in the 'controversy sells' narrative that has made so many otherwise mediocre people come into the limelight.
Academia is known for this kind of trite, esepcially in the non Sciences, hence all the trolling for SJW woke, fem-nazi BS that universities in the West have been pumping out all while China has been focusing on sending their kids to the best universities in the West's STEM fields to take advantage of the native's perpetual navel gazing and outrage culture tantrums.
It's gross, and I saw the uptick of it when I left University in before the 2010s and it already looked bad, I'd later visit several prominent university years later (including CalTtech) and all but a place like Caltech had the same thing--safe spaces, genederless bathrooms, outrage culture firings etc... It was pathetic to see as a person that had to struggle just to get a seat in impacted classes just to graduate in 5 years that this much effort was put on such vapid things.
The joke is what academia has become, this is just a symptom of it.
And if it is immortal to have children, doesn't than mean it is completely moral to kill children painlessly, since it would be better for them if they had not been born?
Maybe I don't understand the position fully though.
I believe the standard answer to a question like that is they're deceiving themselves and not seeing things clearly.
Speaking only for myself, I am tremendously grateful that I exist, however fleeting that existence may turn out to be, and I currently have no desire to wish that I had never existed.
Can't help to feel this guy is some sort of maxed out internet troll.
First world problems, my guess.
I would venture a guess that half of a percent of all internet content I encounter is Gordon ramsey related and for some reason this really bothers me that I have to be constantly exposed to the ramblings of this moron.
news.ycombinator.com##.athing:has([href="from?site=aeon.co"])
news.ycombinator.com##.athing:has([href="from?site=aeon.co"]) + tr
news.ycombinator.com##.athing:has([href="from?site=aeon.co"]) + tr + tr*Also, you can raise a good person or easily fail to do so and risk what amounts to all the anti-social behavior in society. So in a way, yes it's all about the rearing and not the birthing.
Where are you reading that, because I never implied any of it...
The birthing process is intensely traumatic and it sounds like you're taking offense that people hail mothers as "heroic" for going through that. What's there to argue? They inject numbing agents directly outside the spinal cord and it's still not enough. It's absolutely metal.
Saying (hypothetical you) having kids is purely selfless act that everyone is sacrificing themselves for, is a stretch, IMHO. It's just a tradeoff like many other things, it's tough but people do it because payoff is high as well. I hear a lot of times from people, as if there is no payoff and everyone should just be grateful of their kids, which sometimes comes off as trying to be heroic about it.
That said, not all parents should be regarded in the same way, and GOOD parents should be celebrated.
I say this as an agnostic (ex-mormon), anarcho-socialist(i.e. left-libertarian NOT libertarian party - more aligned with DSA than lib party), global warming believer who believes thorougly in masking-up and calling out any business who refuses to enforce it. In other words, I'm as left and anti-authoritarian as you get on the political compass... This only matters, because you just assume the people "for families" is your evangelist types and right-wingers, not true.
We almost didn't have kids (took 14 years at age 38 we finally had our first) thanks to infertility. I was ready to say oh well, you win some/lose some. My wife who is still mormon but not very active felt that - her whole purpose was motherhood, so we kept trying.
I'm so glad I didn't give up on that... I've had anxiety/depression/etc the past few years. My boys are what keeps me from going over the deep-end, and made me get therapy and lose weight.
Gay, Trans, Childless, Polygamy, Monogamy, Polyamory, whatever your lifestyle I say do your thing, and always have. I've told church leaders to go to hell for bashing people that didn't fit their idea of "family values" (i.e. lgbtq), don't bash those of us who family life is part of our identity.
Edit: That said, I once wanted like 8 kids (cause that's what mormons do?), now I'm happy with 2, though I wish we could've had a girl, but that ship's passed (health reasons), so I'll be happy w/ my boys or maybe we'll adopt.... but as I've gotten older, I think maybe some people are a bit too...ambitious on child-rearing. Like the Duggars... 2-4 should be plenty and economical, I think moderation is a virtual and a moral tenet.
When a child gives you a hug, even if it's not yours (we fostered a decade ago), it does something to your over-all well-being, does it matter if it's "real" or just "pre-programming" isn't everything we do some sort of pre-programming? I mean there's very high odds we're living in a simulation if you ask some people...
I mean the odds are very high we run our own super simulation someday, and if we do we end up creating a sentient civ like us inside it, which would mean -- what are the chances someone else did and that's why we exist?
Absurd philosophy, absurd reasoning, absurd conclusion.
A lot of this conversation leads from the millennial baby bust. There is a podcast called "Chapo Trap House" that talked about the baby bust ( they are pro-natalist if you were curious ), and I think they put it well:
We have stopped believing in the future. Constant economic downturns, the rise of fascism, the continued destruction of our environment and seemingly NOTHING being done to fix any of it.
We don't have ANY WEALTH. The ultra-wealthy have sucked up all excess capital in the country and people are pissing in bottles while being chirped at from their smart-watches while making pathetic pay. All of this so they can go home to their house where they have multiple room-mates.
We would rather not have children than watch them starve in the event of any number of possible ecological doomsday scenarios end up happening.
0: Nice pamphlet effect about the backfire effect: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe