Breeders

[Heavy]

I mean, it's kind of silly to expect people not to breed. Literally the only real purpose of life is to pass on your genetic material to your offspring, so they can do the same. If people stopped having children then we would die out as a species, which in terms of evolution means we failed. Evolution has programmed us to celebrate having children for this exact reason.

Yes, let it die, please. Fuck humanity.

Do you miss our point on purpose completley or are you just ignorant?
I think the latter..

 

[Secrets1]

For a start, this is tantamount to "other people's feelings are more important than yours". Its not true, and its extremely unhelpful.

Why are we to care more about the impact our suicide will have on our parents, than we do about the impact our upbriging had on us?


Sorry but GET OVER IT. ITS NOT ABOUT YOU. STOP TAKING IT SO PERSONALLY FFS.

Part 1: Sometimes I prefer to put other interests ahead of my own. Part of having empathy.

Part 2: no u...jeezus

 

[EmbraceOfTheVoid]

Fucking hate these threads....
Can't ram pro life down ya throats, (not that I would)
but ya can ram at me how I am a piece of shit for *breeding* (not that you should)

everyone's circumstance is different. If I had a crystal ball for the future, I wouldn't have children, but I didn't so I do,
I know a lady who's never had children, but she loves mine.
I respect those that don't like children, I have no judgement on your choice, likewise I have children (whether I like them or not is a different matter ) you should have no judgement on my choice.


View attachment 38679

Antinatalism threads are fine under the assumption that the discussion is civil. The OP did take it upon himself to approach natalists in a extremely nasty tone though.

 

[TotallyIsolated]

God damn, parents are SO FRAGILE. Its like trying to talk about racism with a group of white people. To you, your hurt feelings at the *possibility* of being accused are more important than the suffering endured by people in their childhood.

Studies clearly show that, except for sexual abuse, children are most likely to be abused by their parents. Its a fact.

I'm not trying to call you personally an abusive parent. Its not about you. Thats the whole point.

I fully accept your right to have a child, and noone can take that away from. The point is that you have a solemn duty to that child.

 

[Soulless_Angel]

Sorry but GET OVER IT. ITS NOT ABOUT YOU. STOP TAKING IT SO PERSONALLY FFS.

having been personally verbally attacked on this forum before for being a parent, I have a right to say what I feel in an open thread, and is there any need to be so rude?

 

[TotallyIsolated]

Antinatalism threads are fine under the assumption that the discussion is civil. The OP did take it upon himself to approach natalists in a extremely nasty tone though.

I'd argue that the nastiness is inherent to the subject matter at hand here. You know... child abuse.

having been personally verbally attacked on this forum before for being a parent, I have a right to say what I feel in an open thread, and is there any need to be so rude?

Clearly there is, given that you are unable to tolerate other people discussing the subject without you.

Fucking hate these threads....
Can't ram pro life down ya throats, (not that I would)
but ya can ram at me how I am a piece of shit for *breeding* (not that you should)

Your words dont count as nasty, I suppose

having been personally verbally attacked on this forum before for being a parent, I have a right to say what I feel in an open thread, and is there any need to be so rude?

I'm sorry that this has happened to you. This is supposed to be a safe space.

However... has anything you've read in this thread perhaps given you cause to consider why those forum members here who have most likely suffered abuse, neglect, etc... from their own parents might have made this into such an emotive issue.

I'm not saying it was ok for people to attack you personally, but emotions DO run high here. Its really important to be able to have these conversations.

I'd like to add that I dont agree with every point made by fellow anti-natalists in this thread, and I most certainly believe that reproductive rights work both ways, i.e. that having a child is a woman's right if she chooses.

 

[Soulless_Angel]

I'd argue that the nastiness is inherent to the subject matter at hand here. You know... child abuse.

Clearly there is, given that you are unable to tolerate other people discussing the subject without you.

Your words dont count as nasty, I suppose

I'm sorry that this has happened to you. This is supposed to be a safe space.

However... has anything you've read in this thread perhaps given you cause to consider why those forum members here who have most likely suffered abuse, neglect, etc... from their own parents might have made this into such an emotive issue.

I'm not saying it was ok for people to attack you personally, but emotions DO run high here. Its really important to be able to have these conversations.

I'd like to add that I dont agree with every point made by fellow anti-natalists in this thread, and I most certainly believe that reproductive rights work both ways, i.e. that having a child is a woman's right if she chooses.

As a child who was emotionally, mentally and physically abused by her own mother, as well as sexually abused by a family member, then yes I do have consideration for others on this thread, I understand and respect their pain, and maybe their own wish not to create new life in this world.
can I add, on my original post, when I state I and me, it's a generalised comment not actually speaking as me, its so hard to write the true emotion in text

 

[Fedrea]

Jeez plenty of people have lives which are happy overall and childhoods which are all happy. Suicide is a desperate act for people who for whatever reason are suffering and should only be an act when that suffering is truly intractable. Don't assume that the rest of the human race feels anything like the people here.

 

[Bluesummers]

Remember: life is not necessary. None of us was in a bad situation before coming to life. No one desired or had the need to be alive. And the absence of pleasure was not a problem. On the contrary, life is dangerous and a big a problem for a lot of people.

Benatar ?

David Benatar

 

[ManWithNoName]

Remember: life is not necessary. None of us was in a bad situation before coming to life. No one desired or had the need to be alive. And the absence of pleasure was not a problem. On the contrary, life is dangerous and a big a problem for a lot of people.

David Benatar

Thanks.

 

[Lost in a Dream]

Jeez plenty of people have lives which are happy overall and childhoods which are all happy. Suicide is a desperate act for people who for whatever reason are suffering and should only be an act when that suffering is truly intractable. Don't assume that the rest of the human race feels anything like the people here.

There have been quite a few members of SS who were happy once, but something has happened in their lives that stole away their happiness and it has resulted in them becoming suicidal. The fact that there are people currently living happy lives isn't a good reason to reject anti-natalist views because there is no guarantee that their happiness is going to be permanent, especially given the fact that it was their parents who brought them into this world, without them being able to consent to it beforehand.

 

[Fedrea]

There have been quite a few members of SS who were happy once, but something has happened in their lives that stole away their happiness and it has resulted in them becoming suicidal. The fact that there are people currently living happy lives isn't a good reason to reject anti-natalist views because there is no guarantee that their happiness is going to be permanent, especially given the fact that it was their parents who brought them into this world, without them being able to consent to it beforehand.

Yes I agree because I am one of those people. but I disagree that it happens to the majority of people.


At this point it might be appropriate to quote a famous Larkin poem and then a parody which I always used to prefer.


This Be The Verse
BY PHILIP LARKIN
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself

Adrian Mitchell

They tuck you up, your Mum and Dad.
They read you Peter Rabbit, too.
They give you all the treats they had
And add some extra, just for you.

They were tucked up when they were small,
(Pink perfume, blue tobacco-smoke),
By those whose kiss healed any fall,
Whose laughter doubled any joke.

Man hands on happiness to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
So love your parents all you can
And have some cheerful kids yourself.

 

[Dead beat dad]

A child has no choice in being born, but some parentd have no choice in being a parent either.
It is of no doubt many people, especially those who end up here have their own story of what 'bad' parenting looks like.
Some parents are utter cunts to their children, but not all.
Some children turn out to be utter cunts as adults through no fault of the parent but not all.
The world is by comparison to 'western' standards of living a pretty cruel place and even for those living the 'good' life, this can often be shit too.
I think some of this boils down to selfish and inconsiderate cunts who are unkind to others, the planet and everything on it.
The world for everyone, parents and kids would be a better place if people weren't such selfish cunts... But they're not...
I know people who have chosen not to reproduce due to the risks of genetic defect and it has torn them apart and I also know who have been pregnant and high on drugs and it has turn their (and by extension the potential for their child's) life around.
I respect the views of all here, we are brothers and sister brought together through pain and I want to see an end to pain, not just and end to life, and will close by saying I guess it helps humanity if everyone tries not to be a cunt, but also humanity is irrelevant in relation to time and space so...
Love and respect to all.
DBD

 

[rhiino]

everyone's circumstance is different. If I had a crystal ball for the future, I wouldn't have children, but I didn't so I do,

After all this separates you from all the other people that get children today.

I find it alarming how widespread mental illness today is, people just try to hide it because it is stigmatized in some way. Those mental illnesses do not necessaryly come from "bad" parents. You can be hell of a good parent and still end up with an ill child because of the surroundings that are mostly out of your control. The modern world just fuels mental problems.

 

[Stavrogin]

The modern world just fuels mental problems.

I completely agree with you. I personally don't believe a lot of people understand the possibilities that have been unleashed and set in motion, of which no one really has any control over - we can do no other, if we ever could anyway. We're heading towards a post-human, if not trans-human, world I'd say.

 

[s3gfault]

Yes, let it die, please. Fuck humanity.

Do you miss our point on purpose completley or are you just ignorant?
I think the latter..

Uh no, you're the one who missed my point completely. Did you even read it? I understand that a lot of people have shitty lives. But evolution has whittled us down to the ones who are the best at surviving over millenia. And a large enough proportion of the population --- certainly a larger proportion than are anti-natalists --- wants to continue surviving that we're not going to just stop existing. And anti-natalism is a movement that itself is doomed to die out because, guess what, you can't pass down your views to your children if you don't have any.

 

[Stavrogin]

And anti-natalism is a movement that itself is doomed to die out because, guess what, you can't pass down your views to your children if you don't have any.

Everything is doomed to die out from what I've been told about entropy. And ideas no longer require human carriers as much as they did before due to the internet.

 

[s3gfault]

I can't for the life of me understand why someone who knows they're genetically and/or mentally fucked would pluck a soul from peaceful nothingness and bring it here. My mother was one of them, she should never of had children. Please don't fucking do it, it's selfish.

This is why I would never have kids, I have bipolar disorder and it's made a large portion of my life a living hell

Everything is doomed to die out from what I've been told about entropy. And ideas no longer require human carriers as much as they did before due to the internet.

Sure in billions of years. For the time being we're going to continue breeding and the movement will never take hold, because as I've said the way evolution has programmed us will not allow it to.

 

[rhiino]

But evolution has whittled us down to the ones who are the best at surviving over millenia.

Unfortunately this does not apply anymore. Modern medicine keeps everybody alive, even if weak, plus getting food is only a question of walking to the next supermarket with little to no danger.

 

[Stavrogin]

Sure in billions of years. For the time being we're going to continue breeding and the movement will never take hold, because as I've said the way evolution has programmed us will not allow it to.

I don't belong to a movement, and I agree with what you've said in a way. Although I would emphasise that there will be no conscious allowing of any 'taking hold'; there may one day be some kind of accidental step in that direction due to transhumanism and the development of certain technologies.

 

[maru.]

I'm gonna give my perspective here, because i think this thread has gotten very toxic and there are a few things i'd like to say.
First i want to point out that, in the present, i'm anti-natalist, i don't want to bring any life in this world.
Everyone was perfectly fine not existing until we were born, now look at us.
My mom had a bunch of miscarriages before having me, i was almost one of them, almost born with 5 months, but i was "saved".
To my parents, me being born was a miracle and a blessing, to me it was really bad luck, and a curse.

What i'm trying to say by all of this is that we're all complex and having kids is a complex things, so there are a lot of factors that decide one's perspective.
Before becoming depressed and suicidal, you know what my biggest, only actually, dream in life was? To get married and have kids.
Life always seemed kind of dull tbh, i enjoyed my hobbies, had career plans, but none of that felt, you know, fullfiling in anyway in the grand scheme of things.
The thought of waking up with a wonderful wife laying by my side, waking up out kids, eating breakfest together, taking the kids to school, going to work felt good.
Just the idea of getting back home after a long day of work and having this family that i love greet me, eating dinner together, enjoying each others company.
It was magic, i wanted it so much.
Fast foward a couple of years, and my thoughts are very different.
"What if the marriage goes wrong? What if she wants a divorce? What if i turn out to be an abusive husband or parent? What if my kids are miserable?"
There are thoughts i didn't have before.
In the same way that we shape our lives, our lives shape who we are.
When i was happy, i had the feeling that, for whatever reason, things would be ok in the end no matter what, i was the protagonist, i was special.
To the majority of people there is also the element of religion, the idea that there is a superior being that loves us, and that if we do things right, we'll be protected.
Another thing is that having kids is just what everyone does, that's the notion most people have, you get married, you have kids, and they grow up to do the same.
Most people don't think the same way a lot of us do because, well, most people don't go to suicide forums.
When one reaches the stage we have, of wanting to take our own lives, it isn't just a matter of having different thoughts, our ways of thinking are different.

To put it simply, yes, there are abusive parents, there are people who shouldn't have kids ever, some parents are good but the kids still end up miserable.
Like i said earlier, i don't want kids anymore, i now have an ant-natalist perspective, but it wasn't always like that.
If my life kept going smoothly instead of going off the deep end, there's a big chance i would have had kids, and would have seen nothing wrong with it.
Most people, especially parents that aren't abusive or that don't have kids as a way of having health care when they're old, have the best of intentions.
I say this because, well, this thread is pretty toxic, and i'm seeing that a lot of parents here are feeling attacked, and like, of course they are.
The title of the thread is "Breeders", i don't know about you, but when i hear the word "Breed", i think about animals that just want to reproduce mindlessly.
That's not the case, and i hate that this word is used at all.
We can discuss if having kids is a good or bad thing all day, i personally thing the latter, but the morality of it is a totally different thing.
Most people, when they have kids, don't even think about things going wrong, or that their kids could be miserable, they think everything will be ok.
Call it ignorance, call it wishful thinking, but it's not evil, it's not acting in bad faith, it's not a flaw of character.

Now, for the people here who have kids, no one but you knows what your intentions where when you had them.
So if you know they were good, it doesn't matter if you're told otherwise.
Still, you had a kid, or more than one, and now they're out there in this unforgiving and scary world.
I'm sure your way of seeing the world is different from when you had them, i'm sure you don't want them to end up here, ever.
So please, be the best parent you can be, they didn't choose to be born, you and your partner made that choice.
Now there's this life out there, that could be miserable like us, like you, please, do whatever you can to not let that happen, you have that responsibility.

What i really want to say at the end of the day is, no one ends up here in this forum by chance, we're all fucking miserable.
Let's not make things worse for one another, please, everyone.

 

[s3gfault]

Unfortunately this does not apply anymore. Modern medicine keeps everybody alive, even if weak, plus getting food is only a question of walking to the next supermarket with little to no danger.

True, which even further supports the idea that we will continue existing since even the weakest and dumbest among us can survive long enough to reproduce, and dumb people are much more likely to be "neurotypical" in that they applaud the birth of children and have many of their own.

I don't belong to a movement, and I agree with what you've said in a way. Although I would emphasise that there will be no conscious allowing of any 'taking hold'; there may one day be some kind of accidental step in that direction due to transhumanism and the development of certain technologies.

Yes, possibly. But humans as a whole (in the form the we currently exist) will never all decide to voluntarily stop having children.

 

[EmbraceOfTheVoid]

Not having children is the most compassionate thing I can do. Not just for myself and the child, but for the environment. I am convinced 7.7 billion people on this planet is the biggest contributor to most of the ailments of this world, in particular environmental destruction. Soon this planet will not be able to sustain such a population, and life itself will be threatened.

I don't know how we would implement this ethically, but I think human beings should stop breeding.
Not having a child is the biggest action you can take to reduce your carbon footprint.

 

[ForensicallyAware]

Has the existence of mankind been worth all the misery war oppression pain and torture?

I say nothingness is an improvement on those things.

 

[Intheo]

Violence and suffering is a by product of existence, yes. But in the natural ecosystem, there is some sort of balancing force, and changes are usually quite slow. No other species can propagate as fast and artificially scale our precarious resource production all the while creating the level of destruction that we do. Rats and cockroaches breed a lot but they don't cause the destruction that we do, not to mention they're not very high up on the food chain. I'm convinced we don't serve any role at all in the ecosystem unlike other species, so if all of us were to disappear one day, the rest of the planet would thrive.

 

[Realist101]

Antinatalism is entirely correct.

People here are claiming that suicide is rare? The situation we deal with here is not in any way rare.

Suicide is very common. Leading cause of death for men under 45 in the UK is suicide. I can't believe there is an atmosphere of naive optimism here.

In 2017, 10.6 million American adults seriously thought about suicide, 3.2 million made a plan, and 1.4 million attempted it, according to the CDC.

The leading cause of death, heart disease, killed 647,000 people that year.... So, if all suicide attempts were successful, suicide would be the leading cause of death!! People just don't talk about this for some reason.

What is a good life? People always complain about horrifying world events and life events. People don't actually think the world is good. Please find me these people who have good lives. I'm very interested in knowing more about them, because I've never heard of them.

 

[Intheo]

Antinatalism is entirely correct.

People here are claiming that suicide is rare? The situation we deal with here is not in any way rare.

Suicide is very common. Leading cause of death for men under 45 in the UK is suicide. I can't believe there is an atmosphere of naive optimism here.

In 2017, 10.6 million American adults seriously thought about suicide, 3.2 million made a plan, and 1.4 million attempted it, according to the CDC.

The leading cause of death, heart disease, killed 647,000 people that year.... So, if all suicide attempts were successful, suicide would be the leading cause of death!! People just don't talk about this for some reason.

What is a good life? People always complain about horrifying world events and life events. People don't actually think the world is good. Please find me these people who have good lives. I'm very interested in knowing more about them, because I've never heard of them.

The leading cause of death in my country is suicide.
Yep, according to the WHO, 800,000 people a year successfully commit suicide throughout the globe. Compare that to the covid-19 deaths that made everybody freak out.

 

[FriendofDeath]

For a start, this is tantamount to "other people's feelings are more important than yours". Its not true, and its extremely unhelpful.

Furthermore, the evidence VERY CLEARLY points to the parents being at fault. Adverse childhood experiences are a leading indicator of the development of depression and ultimately of death. Abuse and neglect are SHOCKINGLY common. Why are we to care more about the impact our suicide will have on our parents, than we do about the impact our upbriging had on us?


Sorry but GET OVER IT. ITS NOT ABOUT YOU. STOP TAKING IT SO PERSONALLY FFS.

"Adverse childhood experiences are a leading indicator of the development of depression and ultimately death." Curious about this. In a family with multiple children, some suffer depression while others do not. You can have multiple people experience the same event but have very different reactions. And does this viewpoint mean I am not responsible for who I am and what I have become? Is it due to those that raised me? Educated me? I would like to add here that I may be missing some points you feel are important. I have some cognitive issues that can affect my ability to follow something I don't know much about. Thanks.

Another question I have...

Do antinatalists believe in reincarnation? I think I mentioned this early in the thread, but it was passed over. I'm guessing "no" since many have written they didn't ask to be born or that eternity in nothingness was preferable to living on earth. I am not basing this on any religious system, but on some beliefs I was brought up on. Thanks for your input.

 

[Zappfe lover]

I'm just saying why not fix it being a hellhole and why not blame the people who make it one

You can't fix the hellhole, though. Even if humans didn't exist, the world would still be a horrible place to live. Just look at the amount of suffering animals go through daily.

Remember: life is not necessary. None of us was in a bad situation before coming to life. No one desired or had the need to be alive. And the absence of pleasure was not a problem. On the contrary, life is dangerous and a big a problem for a lot of people.

David Benatar

Yeah, that's the main utilitarian argument.

 

[EmbraceOfTheVoid]

You can't fix the hellhole, though. Even if humans didn't exist, the world would still be a horrible place to live. Just look at the amount of suffering animals go through daily.

1. On The Ways In Which Nature Makes Andrea Yates Look Like June Cleaver
Eurasian coots, a species of migratory water bird, may hatch up to nine chicks. But under normal circumstances, food is in short supply. The parent birds feed the baby birds tiny shrimp for the first three days after hatching. Then, mama coot turns into Mommy Dearest. A baby bird begs for food, as usual—but, with no warning, the parents "punish" it, biting the chick hard on its tiny head. The parents do this to all the chicks in turn. Eventually, one chick is singled out for special torture, and abused until it stops begging for food and starves to death.

This process is repeated until only two or three chicks survive.

Pelicans hatch three chicks, but under normal circumstances, only one survives. Instead of the parent birds doling out death, it's the siblings—the two larger birds pluck at the smallest with their sharp beaks and knock it out of the nest. Then the conspirators turn on each other until only one chick is left.

Sir David Attenborough141 himself acknowledges that this might be a bit cruel, by human standards. But, he assures us, it's all for the best—in especially good years, a pelican or coot can raise an extra chick or two. So torturing baby birds to death serves the purpose of increasing the genetic fitness of the parents by a little bit.

Does that really make it okay?

2. The Incoherence of Species-Relative Morality
We are taught as children not to apply human standards of morality to animal behavior. We do not expect macaques to be egalitarian, nor male lions to refrain from killing cubs sired by other males. We should not, this theory goes, expect animals to raise the babies they produce to adulthood; we should not be dismayed if they, in fact, torture their young to death when it is advantageous for them to do so.

Most people of our era have a strong, visceral inclination against cruelty to animals, just as we do against cruelty to human children. We judge animal suffering to be bad. Watching a nature documentary, we hope the impala can evade the lion, yet we also hope the lion cubs get fed somehow. But watch what your mind does when considering these two contradictory hopes. Does it come to a coherent resolution of the problem? Or does it just shrug its shoulders and spackle the problem over with some bullshit about the circle of life? Life must go on . . . end of thought.

Is it okay that the impala gets eaten? That the cub dies? What about an old lion slowly dying in the hot sun? How about that little chick pictured above, getting abused and starved to death by its parents?

-Every Cradle Is A Grave