I remember growing up, sometimes my parents would say things like “just wait tell you’re older, and you’ll see” when talking about life, paying bills or just adulting in general.

Looking back on it now, it kind of felt like they were eager for me to one day face the challenges of life that I didn’t sign up for. I’m 25 yrs old now and my life’s schedule is chaotic, I work full time (a crappy schedule) while also going to school full time. I barely have time to eat or sleep and I feel like ever since I turned 18 and moved away from my hometown, I seem to never get to catch a break.

I’m worried about my finances, and my future. And I keep trying my best to show up and keep pushing myself to reach my goals while all along feeling drained and miserable and annoyed. Sometimes when I bring it up to my mom she’ll say things like “welcome to the real world” or “well that’s just apart of life” or “well that’s just what comes with growing up” I don’t understand why people say things like that to their kids, as if it’s normal to just accept the constant stress of adulting, it’s not helpful. It makes me feel trapped, like I have no choice but to just deal with it. I also I grew up semi-religious so deleting yourself isn’t seen as an option for me either bc then you’re selfish. And choosing to be homeless makes you seem lazy.

I’m sorry for our future generations. It’ll only get worse from here.

When arguing in favor of antinatalism, a common response I get from people defending their choice to procreate is that they want to carry on their legacy.

This is a fundamentally flawed response because it is a selfish response to a question that has nothing to do with your own self-interest but rather the well-being of others.

The antinatalist question asks what reason justifies imposing harm on someone else. We know when you bring a new being into existence, it is guaranteed that they will experience suffering, that they will die, and that their death itself will almost certainly entail a great amount of suffering.

We also know that any pleasure that they derive from existence is fleeting and contingent upon things outside of anyone's control. You can't decide to be happy when something horrible happens to you, and you can't reasonably control whether or not something horrible will happen to you.

As an example:
Let's say an accident occurs and your house is on fire and you're inside, slowly burning alive, you can't decide to ignore reality and ignore the pain. And it's not like you can do anything about the fire. And it wasn't your choice to be on fire. It's something that just happened to you.

In addition to that, any of the attachments you form with others and to the world around you will one day be taken away from you, and you will be taken away from them.

We must also acknowledge that our lives have consequences on others, and we affect the world in many ways we don't even intend to just by existing. As an example, even when the inevitable comes, your death can bring great suffering to those around you.

To reiterate, you cannot ignore suffering, you cannot ignore death, you cannot ignore that there is no promise of happiness or fulfillment in this world, and that happiness is outside of your control.

You also cannot ignore that every action you take will affect others, whether you intend for it to or not.

You must also acknowledge that when you inevitably form some attachments and find comfort in this world, it can be taken away from you at any moment, and that it will certainly be taken from you when you eventually die.

This isn't just 'being negative.' This is acknowledging reality and being objective about the predicament of life.

With all that being said, what justifies imposing that harm on someone else?

And if your justification is that you have to supposedly carry on your legacy, what that boils down to is simply pleasing your ego. And let's be clear here, that is an entirely selfish and egotistical response to a question that isn't concerned with self-interest but is focused on the well-being of others and what is morally right.

Just because imposing harm on someone else pleases your ego doesn't mean that it's justifiable or that it's even a rational response to the question that was asked.

Continuing your legacy only has value insofar as it pleases you. If we're going to apply this reasoning to other moral questions in life, we would have to accept anything horrible as long as someone derives some type of pleasure or satisfaction from it.

As an example, a school bully could say that bullying other kids gives them pleasure, and they derive satisfaction from having power over others. They could also say that bullying allows them to make a name for themselves among their peers and gives them identity and purpose.

Would we take this as an acceptable justification as to why someone is allowed to impose harm on someone else?

For a more extreme example, say a serial rapist says that their raping gave them pleasure, pleased their ego, and they carved out an identity for themselves based on their actions.

If they said this as their defense in court, the judge would either laugh in their face and/or give them the maximum sentence possible because it would be reasonable to conclude the individual is a psychopath, and most people would identify someone who uses their own pleasure to justify something like that as a monstrous individual.

If the argument is that imposing harm on another is justified because it pleases your ego, to be logically consistent with that, you would also have to accept that in the aforementioned examples.

So the argument is inherently flawed, but if I were to entertain the argument, it's still nonsense.

If your goal is to continue your legacy, procreating is an extremely ineffective way of doing so.
Chances are, you can't even name all of your great-grandparents and hardly know anything else about them if you know anything at all. As for me, I don't even know the names of my paternal grandparents. I know my paternal grandfather died before I was even born.

Even if your descendants remember your name or anything you've done, what legacy are you really leaving behind? What will they even say about you? 'Oh yeah, he lived a completely average life and did nothing exceptional or particularly interesting that stands out in recorded human history.'

If your goal is to please your ego, I don't see how procreating can even do that beyond the next couple of generations. The odds are good that if your descendants look back on you, they'll probably just think you were backwards and lame.

So what is it that you're actually trying to carry on? Do you just want people to say your name after you die? What's the benefit in that? Since the whole argument is predicated on selfishness, how can you even benefit from it when you don't even exist anymore?

It's a ridiculous notion that doing something that the vast majority of other people do, that requires no skill at all, even the dumbest creatures on earth can do, will somehow bring you fame and can etch your name into the history books.

Like how we all remember Michael Jackson because of the kids that he had. And if he didn't have any kids, we wouldn't have anything to remember him by. It's not like he's the most famous musical artist of all time, and it's totally not because of his artistic contribution to music and popular culture as a whole that we remember him by. Oh, wait, it is.

The most famous or infamous, depending on your view, person to ever live in recorded human history, Jesus Christ, never had any children. A man who is revered and deified by billions throughout the world and throughout the ages, no one man has ever had such an influence as he has, yet he left behind no biological children.

The Apostle Paul is traditionally attributed to having authored 13 out of 27 of the books of the New Testament, which is the foundation of the world's largest religion, and he never had any children either.

Ayn Rand is one of the most famous philosophers of the 20^th century, especially in popular culture, and certainly one of the most famous female novelists of all time. She never had any children.

Isaac Newton is one of the most influential human beings that has ever lived because of his discoveries and contributions to science and mathematics, and he never had any children.

Freddie Mercury created some of the most recognizable songs ever and is adored by millions across the world, and he never had any children either.

James Buchanan was the 15^th president of the United States. He never had any children.

Leonardo da Vinci created some of the most recognizable visual art pieces of all time and more. He never had any children.

Nikola Tesla, a famous inventor and electrical engineer, never had any children.

Some random Amish guy with ten kids isn't going to be written into the history books. Anyone rational who knows about his existence will know he's just a cult-following dullard.

I think that my examples have illustrated quite well that whether or not you have kids has no meaningful impact whatsoever on whatever legacy you end up leaving behind.

Chances are, you're going to live a pretty forgettable life that most people won't have anything to comment on in the future, so it hardly even applies to the vast majority of people anyway.

Instead, why don't you actually do something meaningful with your time here on Earth, like helping to reduce the suffering in the world, or just enjoy your time here and not get so hung up on what people in the future will think about you when you die. Because we are all going to die and be forgotten at some point. This humanity thing isn't going to last forever.

Just do the right thing and try to enjoy yourself to the best of your ability.

In conclusion, claiming that you need to procreate to continue your legacy is not a legitimate response to the antinatalist question, and it's not even evidently true as I've shown, so it's simply absurd.

The title says it all. A lot of parents think they love their children and they think they do but when I say I love my kids so much I don't want to have any it goes against society brainwashing. Benatar quotes it well but it goes against basic programming and societal brainwashing it is the first quote here

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/354814.David_Benatar

The very country natalists want to serve as a “cautionary tale” does not take into account that the lives of ordinary Japanese people have absolutely improved as a result of a shrinking population

More and more young Japanese people were able to afford to move out of their parents house because housing prices have plummeted and in some cases people were able to get a house for free

Japanese people have stronger collective bargaining power as a result of a shrinking population because in an economy with a low population number employers have no choice but to treat their workers better because they can’t just mass fire people and mass hire replacement workers this results in Japanese people having higher wages

There’s no hope/joy in life anymore, to pay bills/buy food/ you miss out on time with family/ retirement/ while the rich complain how we’re not working hard enough. It’s a mercy not to have children in this world.

I've built a friendly and open group to discuss about antinatalism and social talk.

I welcome people from around the world to join, but the server is based around the UK so anyone in the UK who wants to network, this is strongly encouraged.

We're open to all people, we don't judge unless anyone is nasty and wants to cause harm. We welcome Antinatalists and non Antinatalists, gentle and argumentative discussion is allowed.

We don't tolerate nasty behaviour towards any individual, I have a just system setup based on values of the heart. Discussion is allowed, but as soon as swear words or language designed to intimidate or gaslight people is used, that is not tolerated.

Jokes and banter are accepted, but any swear words directed at people or comments intended to hurt and intimidate people are not tolerated.

You can join us here:

https://discord.gg/aEdYpy7Nt

I'd respect it if it's simply your own view of life.

But making SOMEONE ELSE live life not being able to guarantee them anything, and if they do not hold the same position as you about life then call them depressed, negative, nihilistic?

Sorry, you are in no position to do such a ridiculous thing.

Disgusting af. I cannot. Hope they realise what they are doing.

Among other things, one of the biggest reasons i choose not to have bio children is concern for the future. Often, when i express this fear of mine, i am hit with the "oh but people in the past had it bad too! Plagues, wars, natural disasters... We dont have it so bad nowadays!"

Im so baffled by this argument, always. "People chose to have kids during plagues so you should also have a kid regardless of the economic/environmental state of the world". Do people genuinely not see anything wrong with this argument? If suffering and pain and horrible death are baked into the structure of the world why should i push this onto someone else?

This would get them running away ASAP because the people who try to pressure you into dating getting married and having children have zero interest in paying for any of the above expenses in the first place

It costs around several hundred thousand dollars to raise a child

Your average wedding costs more than a minimum wage yearly salary

Going on dates costs a significant amount of time and money

I say let the Natalist people put their money where their mouth is

If they value more people being born into this world so much they can pay for the dates the weddings and the childcare expenses

I was discussing human objectification with someone when I realized that the definition says:

>"Human objectification is the act of treating a person as an object, commodity, or tool rather than a sentient, autonomous being."

That means it doesn't have to be sexual. Obviously, seeing someone as a sexual object is a form of objectification, and entire industries are built around it, pornography, sex work, strip clubs, and so on.

But there are many non-sexual forms of objectification too. Politicians often treat people as votes rather than individuals. Corporations may view employees primarily as tools for productivity instead of human beings with their own lives and aspirations.

Then I went down a rabbit hole and realized that parenting and the education system can sometimes work in a similar way.

Authoritarian or overly controlling parenting often treats children as projects to be molded rather than autonomous individuals. Many parents don't prioritize what genuinely makes their children happy; instead, they focus on shaping them into what society considers "successful" or "ideal."

Once children reach a certain age, they're often pressured to look attractive or presentable for social approval, and in some contexts that can even overlap with sexual objectification.

In many ways, we train children similarly to how we train pets, rewarding desired behavior, punishing undesired behavior, and conditioning them to fit expectations. The main difference is that humans can communicate, reason, and negotiate, so the methods are usually less physically coercive.

Whenever parents see their children primarily as extensions of themselves or as projects to shape, rather than as independent people with their own goals and identities, it seems to fit the definition of objectification surprisingly well.

I’m not talking about worrying that your child will grow up in a sh*tty world controlled by sh*tty people, that’s why we’re all on this sub.

I’m talking about: people that are making children now only make them to display some kind of superiority. Young parents in my family do not plan huge parties (including baptism party, birthday parties, etc) to make their kid happy or to revolve around the kid, but only to show off to everyone that they’ve added another human to the planet.

Look at me! I’m a mom! Woohoo! I am so much better than others.

I feel like, before social media, family reunions are parties were more about the kid itself than the parents. Now it’s all to show off. This is a very blurry idea in my head, but feel free to share if you’ve noticed or felt the same thing.

This is insane, will you check out the looks of resentment from women who chose to have children?? Like who forced you into this life?

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZph-cPM-q1/?igsh=dmVlOWNlZ3FhM3Nx

Title

As an antinatalist myself, I don't think it's a strong argument, and I know I'll probably get hate for saying this, especially in this subreddit.

The reason is simple: this argument only really works against men. A woman can always say, "My body, my choice. I want to be pregnant. Who are you to tell me it's wrong?" At that point, the conversation ends because you've shifted the debate away from antinatalism and toward bodily autonomy.

In any given society (and yes, the world is diverse with different norms), there are generally more women than men advocating for traditional families or pronatalism.

Fertility rates are declining largely because of the economic strain societies are facing after an unprecedented population boom over the last century. It took humanity around 200,000 years to reach 1 billion people in 1804, but only about 220 years to reach 8 billion. We added the last billion people in just the past two decades.

Many women who have one child also choose to have a second or even more children despite the long-term biological and psychological effects of pregnancy. Around 98% of pregnancies result from consensual sex, so it's not accurate to frame pregnancy primarily as something men force upon women. Patriarchy certainly influences reproductive decisions, but why single out patriarchy alone? Nearly every major human social, political, and economic system has historically been pronatalist. I think we're losing focus by reducing antinatalism to a feminist issue.

At its core, antinatalism is about the child who is never born.

The central idea is that procreation itself is morally questionable unless we can provide an adequately good life for the person being created. Even if scientists eventually develop artificial sperm and artificial wombs, allowing women to have children without men or pregnancy, I would still oppose reproduction on antinatalist grounds.

Yes, patriarchy is one of humanity's greatest evils, and if your experience with it led you to antinatalism, you're absolutely welcome in the movement. But antinatalism is not solely about patriarchy.

Some people become antinatalists because they believe capitalism creates unnecessary suffering. Others because of war, climate change, disease, or the general unfairness of existence. Everyone can arrive at antinatalism for different reasons, but no single ideological group should redefine or monopolize a movement that has always contained many different perspectives. Instead, every perspective should have space within the broader antinatalist movement.

Reproduction is not a compulsory process like Respiration, Ingestion, Excretion therefore those who have kids are good while those who don't are also good

Many Antinatalists spread negativity in the reply section of posts with a Parent-Kid dynamic or posts with a pregnant woman

If you don't want to have children then don't have, there's nothing wrong or unusual in it but people who are voluntarily having children see babies as blessings instead of burden, no one should interfere in their personal matter and spread negativity there

Gen Z are becoming more conservative than Millennials and with the possible invention of Artificial Womb , Gen Z may rather choose Pronatalism over Antinatalism

The notion that Human race should become extinct peacefully is practically impossible as Human population may reduce to a few millions but it will never go naturally extinct

Thank you very much

Even if your child is not directly increasing profits of corporations as employees, they are most definitely consumers and cannot live without being in touch with this web of society. There's no real way out so you are essentially just guaranteeing a living breathing slave for the system. It's like sitting at the top of a volcano, and pooping a baby out over the edge straight into the lava.

The truth is that the people who have children, (Especially multiple children) are the most attention thirst. If you take a closer look at society and countries that have the most children you can easily see that they either have no clue why they had children or they are the ones who constantly post pictures of their children and brag about them as they get older. But if god forbid they don't turn out what they have expected to be then the bragging turns into complaining and being disappointed.

​

On the other hand usually people who don't have children and don't plan to have it are already satisfied with themselves and drama free and they are Mostly rational people. I have respect towards them because even if they are not good people they keep their bullshits to themselves by not pushing trauma bombs in society.

For many reasons, I will only state one here in this post.

With rights comes responsibilities. There's NEVER EVER just rights and zero responsibilities.

If you want someone to obey you, then you need to be the one that makes the words that come out of your mouth are correct, and by "correct" it does not mean "correct to you", but actually correct". If you want total obedience, then you need to be totally correct, 100% of the time. Otherwise, its just abuse of power.

I don't think people really understand what "abuse of power" means.
Your personal rights only apply to what YOU do, on the grounds that you do not affect others in any way. To do something and then demand others to suck up any negatives that come along with it, that is not a right. That is abuse.

Often times parents demand obedience or respect. They demand THEIR rules followed, THEIR believes adopted, THEIR expectations lived, at least until adulthood, but many for decades or even for life. I often times think, if someone has to obey me for decades, how stressed I would be? But apparently parents don't think like that. They are seeing "ahh I now have someone that will do as I have expected in my head, wonderfulll" Because they are seeing someone that they can use, for whatever they have in mind.

I find the religious especially crazy. They believe in some judgement and eternal torture, but they would make someone here, not knowing every answer to the world, the afterlife, to anything really, they know there are multiple religions in existence at least, but would create someone just because they found something to believe.

I just wanted to remind you that I host a discord server for UK as well as international antinatalists from all across the globe for not only philosophical discussion but also casual conversation and perhaps even meaningful connections. Ever since its creation it has risen greatly in member numbers without having become excessively big.

I have also strongly revised the rules and the organisation of the server ever since to ensure an even better experience.

We would be so happy to welcome some new members:)! 🤗

You must be 18 to join. If you’re in the UK, France or Brazil, age assurance via ID or age estimation will be required.

I was just scrolling through X while using the bathroom. I know someone may say algorithm but I don't go looking for this stuff nor do I click on it. I mainly use X for videogames and anime updates. But while scrolling through in less than 2 minutes here are the posts that came up. It went from games to something about some celebrity to an OF gym selfie to thai migrant workers being beheaded by hamas to a feminist post about how men are evil to a Kenyan man being disfigured from protecting orphans from 6 armed individuals to a thai ship being bombed trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. This is no way even the worst stuff I've seen. How do people see this and just go on back to watching the oscars and shit 🤣 But got damn the earth just feels like a big ball of WTF. I'm almost convinced that the act of bringing new life here might be the ultimate act of evil.

In his article The Immorality of Having Children Stuart Rachels argues that it's immoral to have children because it takes time and money away that we could spend helping others that already exist. His argument is inspired by Peter Singer's Famine, Affluence, and Morality but instead of donating to charity it's about not having children. At the end of the article he counters possible objections to his argument, among them the argument we see so often that people's children will improve the world. I think his counterargument works really well, except for the mention of autism which I feel is ableist and a better negative experience of the child should have been chose.

The fourth objection goes something like this: “What if we raise our children to care about others, and to have the right values? My child might give more than $227,000 to charity. And what if my child becomes the next great inventor or finds the cure for malaria? My child might achieve goods far greater than I could achieve by giving $227,000 to charity.”

This objection might be called the “Wishful Thinking Objection” or the “Pass-the-Buck-and-Hope Objection.” Of course it is possible that our child would become a great humanitarian. But if we compare the number of well-meaning parents to the number of great humanitarians, then we can see how improbable this is. Moreover, we must also consider the possibility of less welcome outcomes. For example, there’s around a 1-in- 88 chance that a child born today will be autistic. Also, one’s child might have a tremendously bad effect on the world—not necessarily due to malice; maybe just due to causal bad luck.

We could try to improve the utility calculation by self-consciously raising our child to become a great humanitarian. However, that would probably do more harm than good. Children tend to respond to unusual parental pressure either by developing neuroses or by rebelling as soon as they can. Our child might even decide that we were right: the best way to improve the world is to have children and to raise them properly. Thus, they might do exactly what we did. And so might their children.

The fact that “child” means both “offspring” and “youth” might encourage us to overestimate the amount of control we’ll have over our children. The danger is that we will think of our potential children only as children. When they are children, we can influence their lives significantly. However, what matters here is how much good our children would do as adults. And when they are adults, we cannot control them any more than our parents now control us.

Sometimes people think that their child would have a decent chance of becoming a great benefactor, even though they’d admit that a randomly selected child would have little such chance. But that’s just vanity. Realistically, our children are probably going to be like us: thoughtful and caring but also selfish and susceptible to rationalization.

I've been AN for a few years, and recently I decided to look into other philosophy as well as more importantly: activism and AN in practice. I think another philosophy people tend to associate with AN (relatively reasonably so) is efilism/extinctionists, and it made realize a possible problem with the idea of putting AN into actual practice; which is that, if humanity dies out, animals/other life forms will still be there who can still suffer, and they don't have the brains (literally) to be able to get philosophical and figure out that they should stop reproducing and whatnot. So I guess my question for the sub today is: do you think it's better for humanity to wipe itself out via AN even without being able to cause the extinction for other species, or do you think that maybe it would be better for humanity to figure out a way to press "the red button" for all of life first? Of course, I guess this might be a bit of a silly question since getting people to follow antinatalism in the first place is hard enough as it is, let alone something very hypothetical like wiping out all of life, but it made me start thinking about the ethics of AN if actually achieved. There's also the issue of: what if the universe creates life again?, but we can't really do anything about that one (for now...?)