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Yes, it's sinister and really unhealthy. People, on balance, are a blessing, and love of humanity is a prerequisite to having a civil society.

These misanthropic beliefs are primarily limited to elites, who have become so decadent as to hate mankind. You have Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburough saying "If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels." Also some of the more fanatical environmental groups are less about loving the environment than hating people. You also see similar sentiments expressed in modern architecture -- the idea that architecture shouldn't be beautiful or comfortable because people should be uncomfortable, etc, as in the famous debate between Christopher Alexander and Peter Eisenman. This idea of hating your own group or even hating all mankind is basically the extreme end of modern decadence, a luxury primarily afforded to a subset of people in the wealthiest western nations. Fortunately, it is not shared by the bulk of humanity, or even by ordinary blue collar people in wealthy nations.

In just a 100 years time, we have completely wrecked this planet. Decimated wildlife, emptied the oceans, spread our pollution everywhere. Humanity as a whole very much behaves like a cancer, and that makes it hard to love ourselves.

The goal isn't necessarily self-hate, it's damage control.

Furthermore, consider the option that a lower population long term can be a positive to humanity itself.

> Humanity as a whole very much behaves like a cancer, and that makes it hard to love ourselves.

I guess I see that kind of attitude as the primary thing and then arguments like climate change etc as post-fact justification.

Humanity has been and always will be a mix of beautiful and terrible. In the same time window you're talking about, we made huge strides in equality, science, reached for the starts, explored the depth, etc.

Go back decades, centuries and millennia and you will find something to be depressed about. Crusades? Slavery? Pandemics? Wars? Those things have existed for ever, and yet humanity has always found a way to move forward, trending towards better/safer/more equal. If you believe that "humans are as cancer", you are as justified today as you had ever been, but as a human, forgive me for not being interested when someone who loathes my species suggests it'd be better if we died out.

The difference in our thinking is that I look outside the scope of our singular species and also take into account what it does to this amazing planet, its habitats, and the millions of other species it houses. We're raping and wrecking this place.

All of the accomplishments you list are for our own species, whilst you dismiss anything else. I think humans are an amazing species, as well as a catastrophe. Or maybe it's technically not that humans are awful, rather our "systems" are, our endless growth machine of short term optimization.

I didn't advocate for dying out. There's quite a lot of wiggle room between the predicted 10 billion peak and zero. I would welcome a population decline if it is voluntary and think it's better both for people and for the planet.

> If you believe that "humans are as cancer", you are as justified today as you had ever been, but as a human, forgive me for not being interested when someone who loathes my species suggests it'd be better if we died out.

Scale makes a difference. Going back centuries and millennia is not comparable when talking about problems caused simply by the numbers in existence today.

I do not think anyone is suggesting humans die out in this thread. But it is a mathematical fact that it is possible for the number of humans (or total consumption of humans) to exceed boundary conditions that would allow humans to exist in a stable environment.

> Those things have existed for ever, and yet humanity has always found a way to move forward

This is different.

> guess I see that kind of attitude as the primary thing and then arguments like climate change etc as post-fact justification.

That reads like you're saying "I see accusing them of murder as the primary thing, and then arguments like the fact they stabbed someone 37 times as post-fact justification."

I wish I could give you more than one upvote here.

PSA: I'd also like to point out sometimes people who are smart but suffer from anxiety or depression concoct elaborate philosophical systems in order to rationalize their maladaptive thoughts and behaviors.

For all readers who have anti natalist passion: Depression and anxiety are so common now, please get help if you need it. Please do so before diving into philosophies or movements that reinforce depressive, morbid, or otherwise unhealthy views and actions, like antinatalism

> On one hand, it's those people's problems. On the other hand, as someone living in the West, I am very much "in the same boat" with these people. I suspect the danger to our the kids 20-50 years from now will be consequences of demographic decline much more than climate change.

"West" can just import as many young people as it needs. Already educated and ready for work. Demographic decline is only possible in "rich" countries that intentionally restrict immigration.

> If your philosophy includes not having kids, then your philosophy will go away on its own in a few decades. Whatever the world will look like 20-50 years from now, it will exclude those people and ideas who opted out of life

it’s not only workforce but an ideological suicide.

I do not have the same ideologies my parents do.

I think you're misrepresenting this. The problem opposite to dying out is overgrowth. How do you distinguish which philosophy is trying to reduce overgrowth, and which is promoting dying out? Why do you think the article talks about one, and not the other?

What difference does it make? No culture lasts forever, and we’ll be long gone anyway. If you want your philosophy to be preserved, write a book.

>I suspect the danger to our the kids 20-50 years from now will be consequences of demographic decline much more than climate change.

My kids will face no such consequences on account of me not forcing them into this world. What the rest of you get up to is not of much concern to me.

Why do you only have empathy for your own (potential) children?

I am not the person you responded to, but in the context of that reply, my answer would be because I played no part in other people’s decision to have children. Note that this is not about no empathy overall, but in the context of empathy due to effects of declining population.