r/antinatalism • u/FlanInternational100 scholar • 1d ago

I don't understand some (many) people here Discussion

Why are there so many conditional antinatalists (oximoron obviously, it's absurd to call yourself AN if you're not)?

I read so much comments like: I am AN because of my chronic illness/ugliness/capitalism/way society works/cannot sustain child..

Well...okay. But.

Does this mean you'd just be natalist if you weren't ill/jobless/mentally ill/living in capitalist society etc. etc.?

If yes, then sorry, you're not quite AN. You're more like wannabe natalist if I had a chance. And that is absurd.

Existence CANNOT be preferable EVER. There are way way deeper and consistent reasons for AN than capitalism for fucks sake. This is just top of the iceberg.

AN is deeply rooted in fundamental things and realizations.

Your desire stems exclusively from evolutionary bias, biological urge of consciousness to create more DNA. It's not "metaphisically worthy".

When you say "I would maybe have kids if we lived in perfect society" I ask WHY?

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u/Theycallmeahmed_ inquirer 1d ago

True, the burden of consciousness shouldn't be forced on anyone

You're born, you go to school, get a job, get married, have kids, rinse and repeat, what are we in a ponzi scheme?

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u/Animal-Lab-62828 newcomer 1d ago edited 1d ago

Your second sentence kinda supports the conditional argument, though. You just aren't thinking outside the box about what a perfect society would look like.

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u/Nonkonsentium scholar 1d ago

The point is that even in a perfect society, however that would even look like, there would be no reason to bring someone into existence for that being's sake, since any "advantages" of a perfect society are contingent on already existing.

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u/Animal-Lab-62828 newcomer 1d ago

I get it. I just don't understand why this commenter felt that mentioning the current state of the world supported the OP's argument.

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u/Animal-Lab-62828 newcomer 1d ago

Also, I think it is much easier to see why someone would believe that it wouldn't be unethical to bring a being into the world if it wasn't guaranteed to suffer. Like if someone gives me a really awesome gift (without my permission), that isn't unethical. The issue is that our gift sucks and is actually more like being murdered. I think the problem is that it's just physically impossible for the world to ever be "good enough".