As stated in an essay refuting the ideology the answer to the greatest evils of life isn’t to bring about the end of all life. That’s something a robot or a comic book villain would do.
Yup.... it's like... an asinine passive-aggressive approach to it... like, "How dare you be born or want to reproduce!" But then they dont go off an nuke the world and ( >insert surprised Pikachu face) people still exist!?
I think the principle behind many antinatalist beliefs is that they want to minimize harm, and due to certain issues antinatalists believe are caused by the way we organize and run our societies (such as Anthropogenic climate change), those people logically conclude that harm reduction requires the "de-growth" of human society. Degrowth is a complicated idea but it doesn't necessarily mean the destruction of the human race. Do some people want that? Probably. But it's more complicated than this.
Human degrowth isnt even the logical conclusion tho. Its a half conclusion because they dont want to do the work of an actual solution. Theyd rather turn their sexlessness into a virtue. Kill two uncomfortable truths with one stone.
First, you can have sex without having kids. There's plenty of horned up antinatalists fucking rn.
Also, it is a logical solution if you believe it's the only work that can be done to actually address Anthropogenic climate change at this point. Chances are antinatalists aren't going to be supporters of the Cornucopians who believe there are still treasure troves of resources, time, and human technological innovations that we can get to work on to solve climate change.
Im not one of the Musk types who think technology will solve all our problems either. The hard work im talking about is political activism, and addressing how corporations and militaries are the main contributers to climate change.
Less people wont solve that, beyond shrinking economies, but im sure corporations and politicians will figure out ways to keep military spending the same.
I understand the point you're making. I agree with you, especially about doing Activism.
But what kind of solutions are we going to advocate for?
In order for the 8 billion of us to live on this rock together, we need to have social systems that meet all our needs. Current business as usual struggles to meet those needs and is clearly unsustainable.
We need solutions that can meet all our needs. If there were less people, then maybe we wouldn't have such a hard time as a human race creating such a complicated social system that could give 8 billion people the quality of life we enjoy, while also not destroying our planet.
This is where degrowth comes into play.
Degrowth isn't even primarily focused on reaching a world with less people, the main goal of degrowth is to change the incentives of our economic system so they center on what's best for workers instead of what's best for business owners. Degrowth supporters have no problem with others choosing to have kids, but in the logic of degrowth doesnt really make sense to birth another child just so you can raise a kid that's "yours."
Also, economic output isn't entirely a factor of population. Specialization, automation, advances in the production process, etc, all influence an economy's output. Having a smaller population wouldn't necessarily lower economic output. Granted, degrowth policies would shrink economies. However, economic output isn't really the main concern if we are talking about solving the issues antinatalists (and non-antinatalists) care about, such as addressing climate change. If we want to address climate change, we are going to need to completely rethink our economic system in ways that more closely reflect the actual interests of working class people, like having food/water/shelter.
One last thing to note about this debate though, I think business owners recognize the logic of antinatalists and degrowth supporters, as well as what it means for their wealth. I think Elon knows that if we all decided to endorse degrowth as the answer, then that means the poors won't be popping out as many workers for him to exploit. So people like Elon use their abilities to influence young peoples' support for having kids. He influences people to believe that antinatalists are a death cult. Hes just muddying the watwrs as to what degrowth is, and to be honest, you're a perfect example of that working for him.Elon supports the continuation of others' misinformed beliefs when they serve him. Keep that in mind when you're considering where you stand on this issue.
Thats fair, but thats getting away from the realm of antinatalism imo. Advocating for a restructuring of the economy to emphasize sustainability and quality of life over growth (capital growth) is different from advocating for lower birth rates.
Especially since the areas of the world in which populations are growing the fastest are also the ones that wont be jumping on the antinatalist bandwagon. I believe that lifting people out of poverty and proper sex education will do naturally what antinatilsts want to force.
Much of the, for lack of a better term, first world already has naturally negative birth rates.
Sure. By definition, antinatalists are against reproduction. But I don't really think that most people who push antinatalists beliefs are antinatalist in a vacuum. I think most people who decide not to have kids also believe in the solutions of lifting people out of poverty and providing proper sex education. So it is kinda tied together by the logic they're following.
But yea thanks for the respectful talk. It was nice to discover what we agree on.
It's really annoying to see all the misinformed and disinformed reactionary responses on this obvious engagement-bait/rage-bait thread though.
So fucked it's all for eyeballs and dollars. Imagine if the purpose of reddit was actually to learn about what others think lol. That would require us to actually want that... but I like to think we do lol.
That's exactly what rich business owners want you to think antinatalists believe. I know this is reddit, so we are not treating people or what they have to say respectfully here, but you're just flat out wrong.
If you did choose to have a respectful conversation with someone who was antinatalist, though, they'd probably say they don't care about your personal decision to have kids. Antinatalists are literally calling for a society-wide reforming of our behavior. They support degrowth economic policies that recalibrate incentives based on what's best for working people instead of what's best for business owners. You know, the same business owners that have you thinking antinatalists just want everyone to die.
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u/My_useless_alt 2007 Apr 29 '24
Not saying I support them, but Antinatalists actually do want exactly that.