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Oh boy, you guys are gonna love the global pension fund crash then!
Which shouldn’t be a problem, but with how abjectly you guys reject AI and automation, it is gonna be a problem
Yeah, as if automation was never used to cut jobs in order to enrich the wealthy class and the working class didn’t get any of the benefits. /s
Cool I guess we’ll all just die then.
We sure will.
Valuing children only for the monetary value they will contribute is a very good way of producing unhappy children which in my view is pretty immoral. It’s also pretty close to viewing humans as capital and that’s problematic in it’s own right
But without infinite growth how can we feed the capitalistic engine with more souls?
Just think of all them empty mines, sad and alone, only wanting to be filled with the sound of children coughing themselves to death from black lung.
I’m sure that big bad capitalists will be sad of you not having kids and spending all your time and money on movies, games, traveling, …
What money?
Lol, I’m not far-left but I do love comments like these.
It’s important to note that capitalism is far from the only major exploitative system in the world. This said, I’m part of that particular system, and yes… It truly does feel like we’re just cogs in an ever-hungry, broken system.
People have children because they want to, not for growth. In a relatively stable society most people don’t even have many children…
Access to opportunities and birth control drop birthrates.
Lots and lots of poor countries have large populations because poor parents are hoping many children can work. Also lack of access to birth control and far right groups insisting children are a religious necessity.
India: “I need many children to support my everyday life and me when I’m old.”
Germany: “wtf are children?”
(A bit exaggerated of course, but should illustrate your point.)
“If I didn’t have children, who’d take care of me when I get old?”
“If we didn’t have children, who’d work for our pensions and keep society running when we retire?”
“I want to live a happy life after I retire, and you (young people) are obliged to provide that.”Real words I heard.
A lot of people have kids mostly for future-proofing themselves.
gross
common spujb w
they call me wujb
I agree. The thought of bringing a child into the world in our current political and economical landscape would be gross.
hahaha it’s funny because you twisted my words to mean the opposite good one 😂😂😂
Minus the emojis, this statement would be great antihumor (not a disagreement with your point, I just love antihumor).
antihumor + emojis = a good antidote for unkind trolling in my experience :)
What a bunch of cringe edgy antinatalist nonsense. Think about the future, if you don’t have kids, who are we gonna feed to the machine a few decades from now?
Who feeds the machine now, it’s you so why are you even around
Antinatalism is the first law of robotics, reduced to absurdity. It answers the question by forgetting why you asked it in the first place.
Yes, it does eliminate human suffering. However, it does so in the same way that a bullet to the head cures a headache.
Yeah, a nuclear exchange would be a faster way of achieving what antinatalists would achieve if they got their way.
Stupid people have the most kids, that’s how you know the world is full of idiots. Ocassionaly though you meet a really nice humble person that will make you think positive towards people again atleast for a while… Even better if you carry their torch and continue with those good vibes towards others. Gives you that touch of there’s genuinely good people still out there. Its refreshing.
At the level of humanity as a species we are born to reproduce, like every other living thing.
I don’t care about the species, I care about the people. If someone doesn’t want to reproduce, it’s better for both them and the species that they don’t. People only reproducing when they personally get something out of it will eventually make future generations enjoy it more. Forcing it just promotes suffering, perpetuating the cycle of unhappy parents in the long run.
This whole idea of caring about furthering our “species” is eugenics anyways. My genes make me want to be a parent, but I understand that the genes themselves don’t matter for shit. I’m planning to have kids because I will enjoy raising them and helping them live full lives. If someone doesn’t share this desire, I’m not gonna force my preference onto them.
Freedom and treating humans with dignity does that very job of eugenics better than the eugenics notion of pressuring people to be parents. There’s no Darwinian excuse for being shitty to other people. Just be good.
There’s no Darwinian excuse for being shitty to other people.
Exactly. There’s even an evolutionary reason to be good to other people, as described by Pjotr Kropotkin in “Mutual Aid”.
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.
Ah yes, it’s not the billionaires, corrupt politicians and massive industry inefficiency that’s causing our problems, it’s children!!!
I swear to God, reading stupidity from people I expect to be on my side of the political divide hurts especially bad.
More like yes those are the problems and children are not the answer to those problems.
I’m not sure where they got the impression anyone was blaming children unless they are intentionally being obtuse to attack ideas they disagree with. Similar to people who screech “you hate dogs!?!” when you complain about shitty dog owners.
It’s humanity that causes problems
When an invasive species is destroying an ecosystem, what do you do?
I’m not advocating for any policy, I’m just saying people shouldn’t have children. It’s unethical.
I personally can think of several solutions to the climate crisis less drastic than humanity becoming extinct
Not necessarily extinct, but definitely less populous
That’s a policy.
Why would you expect a random person on Lemmy to be on your side?
How about don’t have kids so you can work more and more flexible hours on demand in aspiration of a fabricated idea of a career
I’m not a fan of utalitarianism myelf, so this might be wrong; this sounds like utalitarianism - as the action you did cause other suffering.
then in your moral philosophy, are all actions that cause suffering (and joy, and all other feelings a human can experience) morally wrong?
Is then not dating, f.ex Morally wrong?
Or is it the impossibility of consent? Yes, a child is unable to consent to being born. Just as we are all unable to consent to the world being created, or nature’s whims. I cannot consent to a state on the other side of the world making policies, but I can still react and do things about it.
Is it morally wrong to let animals have children?
What’s f.ex mean?
A guess, but “for example”? That’s how I’m reading it, anyway.
It’s the norwegian / danish way of writing e.g
If one animal species is harming an ecosystem then I don’t see how it’s morally wrong to limit their reproduction.
Usually, a better way to help an ecosystem balance itself is to reintroduce predators or similarly.
the deer population in yellowstone was destroying the soil, this was solved by reintroducing wolves.
there’s a big difference between this, and f.ex castrating a lot of the deer, or going on a shooting spree.
It also goes with the assumption that the ecosystem is either outside the moral spectrum, or morally good.
I was a mild antinatalist for a while. Personally wanted kids, but felt the world was too broken to pass to a new generation that didn’t ask for it.
And then – I know this sounds dumb, but whatever – I played Horizon: Zero Dawn.
Parenthood in a time of armageddon is a central theme, and it’s not subtle about it. Every story element is named in a way that alludes to either parenthood or annihilation. The overarching plot describes the moral challenges of…
spoiler
…planning a next generation of humans to rise from the ashes, thousands of years after the previous generation went extinct. They died to an AI catastrophe, but it works just as well as an allegory for climate change.
Is it ethical to even subject a new generation to this, knowing what we know about how we fucked things up? If we’re gonna try, do we have a duty to put in a kill switch in case things go off the rails again?
Obviously, the game sides firmly with the new humans, but it doesn’t dismiss these questions out-of-hand, and it’s okay with ambiguity and hypocrisy even on the part of Project Zero Dawn’s chief architect.
The ending scene still gets me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFJ_vSCJdO0
As long as you’re keeping it to your own life not trying to encourage genocide via antinatalist policy then you do you.
This. I don’t have children and don’t think its a good idea do to what humanity is doing to the planet, regardless of which element of humanity is to blame, but my other family members have children as do my friends and neighbors. Im not going to proselytize to them or encourage society to disallow it. I may not want it subsidized though, but even that there is often times no choice. For example while people may be bad for the planet in general, ignorant people is worse, so im gonnna want education funded and that same thing plays out for a lot of things.
The subsidies have an ontological value in that they improve the quality of life for the child. So removing subsidies will actively perpetuate and increase the very systemic issues that many antinatalists care about in the first place. You address this too, I’m just expressing agreement that simply removing chiodcare subsidies is not ethically simple even for staunch antinatalists.
In general governments ought to be working to support the people they represent. To me it seems an antinatalist who’s goal is to reduce suffering would want to introduce things like a basic income or some such to improve the quality of life of those who do exist, not further take from those who have yet to be.
Yup. education, healthcare, basic income, carless cities, improved energy efficiency and usage of the cleanest sources. Im down.
especially when I see what kind of people choose to have kids
Then you’re leaving the future to them.
And the suffering that they cause.
Such a doomer mindset
If noone is cultivating and passing on positive culture, it’s not making the chances of reducing suffering any better is my point.
Adoption. Community building. Helping the disenfranchised.
These are all methods of bettering the future without pumping another child into this world. And arguably, they’re morally better than having a child.
I didn’t know these where mutually exclusive.
You were the one who implied that, by saying that not having children leaves it up to those who will.
They’re not making a choice. They’re anti-choice.
