But is that a good reason to have kids? So that I can use them to give my life meaning? — petrichor

Exactly..I'm glad you brought that up because I was thinking that from your previous paragraph.

But I also feel terrible denying them the chance to become conscious, to experience love, to hear music, to inhale the intoxicating scents of a forest, to create something, to come to understand some things, even to be saddened at the injustice of death. Yes, even that latter one. There is a goodness underlying any suffering of a bad. — petrichor

Your mild sadism (which is what I call enacting suffering for others so they can "grow" from it) does not need to be enacted in the first place. You are displaying the exact projection that I discussed in earlier posts..All of this is your imagination, not the reality. The daily grind is the reality- even if an old pine forest smells nice. No one needs to grow from suffering if they do not exist in the first place to need to grow from suffering. To produce a life of suffering because you want to see someone suffer so they can grow is wanting suffering for another, which I don't see the point of prior to someone's actual existence.. Producing sufferers, is producing sufferers, whether there is "growth" at the end of it or not.

Yes, loss is painful, but loss implies the existence of something valuable and truly worthwhile that can be negated by it. And there is some sort of hard-to-explain value even in the existential situation of there being a human confronting all that is difficult, even suffering the loss of beautiful loved ones. How horrible if we didn't suffer the loss of a beautiful being! — petrichor

Why does something need to exist to feel the "beautiful" pain to begin with? This "Beyond Good and Evil" shit is really grating to me, honestly. It's simple- no humans, no humans who "pine" for the beauty of suffering. Again, this is just projection. There is no need to put anyone through anything in the first place. Let sleeping dogs lie. You are not the arbiter of bringing more "meaning" into the world. That does not need to take place. It's just romantic sorrow-projection of your own ego.

I feel grateful for the life they gave me. And I find, even in my darkest moments, I am glad to have lived and known what I have. What a trip it has been so far! — petrichor

Yes yes, the party line.

There is far too much to life to reduce it all down to a single, simple judgment, a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. — petrichor

But that's exactly what we are doing when deciding whether to have children. In that decision, we are deciding if someone else should be born, and that is a thumbs up or down.

Many of us would like to feel we can give ourselves permission to die, to escape the problems of our lives, to be free of what our lives ask of us. — petrichor

Life asks nothing- simple survival and navigating society to the ends of survival is what there is. Otherwise slow suicide by asceticism or fast suicide by some method. Great choices- live a life one might not want, or suicide..you want to give someone that choice, you say?

What complicated creatures we are. And how richly baffling life! It certainly isn't simple or easy. And all of us are struggling in one way or another. But I see value in it all. — petrichor

Just remember, procreation is deciding for another what value they should hold- they must be born and live with it or they should die (by suicide or otherwise). That is the choice you are giving them. The party line of identifying with life's struggles and overvaluing the good experiences is par for the course. Of course we must do this to cope, but it is coping. We have no other choice except death, and we usually fear pain, pain of death, and the unknown.

That's the sort of weird, anxious/neurotic dialogue I imagine most antinatalists going through frequently. Maybe try just try chilling out, not worrying so much, and just experience and enjoy everything for what it is?

Not per a decision. Per contingent statistical norms. — Terrapin Station

Yea "contingent statistical norms" is what I mean when I say "what society dictates".

It is per decision that you based your policy on actions that will impact a living being capable of giving consent in the future based on statistical abnormality though right?
— khaled

Yes, of course — Terrapin Station

I can gather from this that you can't help but feel that any modification to an entity that will survive as a consent capable being that takes it away from statistical norms significantly is morally wrong to do right?

Yea "contingent statistical norms" is what I mean when I say "what society dictates". — khaled

It's clearly not what I mean by that phrase. Otherwise it wouldn't have made sense that I was apparently making a distinction, right?

The thought of no more human life or life whatsoever is an extremely sad and dark thought to me — petrichor

Don't worry then. Antinatalism will sadly never win because it is at a distinct reproductive disadvantage. Antinatalists aren't born or taught, they come to the conclusion on their one individually, though the fact that there has been an antinatalist in every society in every time should really clue you in on something. That maybe the logic is sound.

Reality would be better off if you had never been born — petrichor

That's not the point, antinatalism doesn't target individuals

if none of you had ever been born — petrichor

This is the point

There is far too much to life to reduce it all down to a single, simple judgment, a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down — petrichor

Antinatalism doesn't do that. It reduces it to "Could be thumbs up or could be a thumbs down, this kid didn't ask for the risk so I won't take it for him"

I find I can't name any other situation where people see putting someone in a more risky position for 80 years without their consent ethical. Even if said position promises as much rewards as pains.

What motivates our collecting of evidence against life? Why do some of us go to such lengths to justify our rejection of life? If we are honest, I think we know. — petrichor

Antinatalism isn't a rejection of life, that's pro-mortalism. Antinatalism is the recognition that no matter how much we enjoy or reject life, we don't know what our children will go through and shouldn't take the risk for them

What complicated creatures we are. And how richly baffling life! It certainly isn't simple or easy. And all of us are struggling in one way or another. But I see value in it all. — petrichor

Me too. But my kid might not.

What I meant by "whatever society dictates" is "contingent statistical norms". That's all I'm saying.

The point is, do you see any modification done to an entity that will survive as a consent capable entity bad if it causes a deviation from statistical norms? Is that your position?


PS: 666 replies right now

Your mild sadism (which is what I call enacting suffering for others so they can "grow" from it) does not need to be enacted in the first place. — schopenhauer1

That's not quite what I was getting at, this growing from suffering that you read into what I said. And I object to your accusation of sadism, as I don't get off on the fact of anyone's suffering, nor do I inflict suffering deliberately. I was speaking more to a sense that we embody goodness in simply being pained by evil. It is better that some element of the world actually cares what happens, isn't it? If I go from being a child who cares nothing about the injustice in the world to being an adult who cares, hasn't something improved? Isn't there now more good in the world? And isn't it good to be part of that good?

Suppose someone is being tortured and a crowd stands witness. Suppose, in world A, that this witnessing crowd feels no pain about the torture that is happening. They object not. They are unbothered. They do not suffer. In world B, they are horrified. They care. The feel the need to intervene. They suffer too, seeing this suffering. World B contains more total suffering than World A. But which is a better world? Is it about simply minimizing suffering on a balance sheet?

Is it better to be a caring person with a conscience than to be an uncaring person without one? Suppose the former suffers more because of this?

The pain of the loss of a loved one, as I alluded to, involves several things. First, the loved one must have value. Second, that value must be appreciated by another. That appreciator must be someone to whom it makes a difference whether this value is present or not.

Suppose I am to have a kid and I can choose whether they'll care or not, and I know that if they don't care about anything, they'll suffer less. Should I choose that they won't care? Suppose I can also choose that they'll be so mentally limited that they won't know they'll die, and so will be free of much anxiety. Should I choose that they'll be so limited?

Suppose I could snap my fingers and suddenly all living beings will simply be buried in the ground in safe little pods where they'll be only conscious of the continuous pleasure from machines stimulating their pleasure centers. Would bringing this about mean that I have improved the world?

Is trading consciousness and understanding and caring for pain-reduction always simply and obviously a good thing to do?


I expect that someone will likely point out the problem that in order for me to be the better person that I might be for being pained by evil, I need evil. I need others to suffer so that I might be good, making me a vampire of sorts. Yes, that is a valid point. But it really misses what I am saying. And if there were no consciousness to suffer to begin with, you might say there would be no reason to have people who care that there is suffering. The world would simply be better off dead. But this ignores all the value in life and the possibilty that it couldn't exist without all the suffering. It might well be the best of all possible worlds.

Also, I don't see the world as a dead world in which a few isolated, truly separate and distinct individual conscious minds appear for a short time, sort of distinct from the dead world surrounding them. I suspect that our consciousness is just a highly developed, highly integrated form of a subjectivity always already and everywhere present to itself. We are the universe becoming aware of itself, the world waking up. Isn't there some value in the universe coming to wonder what it is, why it is, and so on? Isn't there something more valuable and amazing in a pile of clay that stands up and asks what it is, even if pained, even if afraid, as opposed to a pile of clay that remains forever just a dead pile of uninteresting clay? If you were to witness such a pile of clay rising up, would you just cleanly terminate its consciousness, just put it out of its misery before it can even really get started, saying, "There! That's better!"?

Since you spoke of growing from suffering, perhaps it isn't just a question of individuals growing from suffering. Maybe it is also a question of the world as a whole growing from it and rising from the muck to become a morally conscious world and to maybe even eventually solve many of the problems of suffering.

Some often claim that the world is uncaring, that nothing matters, that nature is coldly indifferent, and they say this with a negative feeling about this lack of caring that they imagine in the world. But only a dead world is so indifferent. A living world is a world that cares. To eliminate all life that might suffer, and especially all higher, intelligent life, is to ensure that the world is indifferent and that nothing matters. If we exist, then at least part of nature cares what happens and things matter. Even the universe itself gains value and becomes something that can be appreciated and wondered at.


There is something paradoxical about valuing human beings enough to care enough about their suffering to wish them non-existent. That anything happening to them is worth caring about suggests value that wishing to eliminate their existence seems to ignore.

Maybe try just try chilling out, not worrying so much, and just experience and enjoy everything for what it is? — Terrapin Station

The kind of unconscious, thoughtless living that your recommendation seems to suggest is not in my nature. That's the problem with a lot of procreation. People are just too chilled out, not worrying, and not considering consequences, much like animals. Lots of horrible and needless problems ensue.

Just experience and enjoy everything for what it is? Enjoy everything? For what it is? Seriously? If I didn't know better, I'd be tempted to think you must have so far lived a fairly untroubled and oblivious life to say something like that. But I know that everyone has their share of shit to deal with and to witness, so I banish the thought. Rather, I suspect that this must be your coping strategies speaking.

The kind of unconscious, thoughtless living that your recommendation seems to suggest is not in my nature. That's the problem with a lot of procreation. People are just too chilled out, not worrying, and not considering consequences, much like animals. Lots of horrible and needless problems ensue.

Just experience and enjoy everything for what it is? Enjoy everything? For what it is? Seriously? If I didn't know better, I'd be tempted to think you must have so far lived a fairly untroubled and oblivious life to say something like that. But I know that everyone has their share of shit to deal with and to witness, so I banish the thought. Rather, I suspect that this must be your coping strategies speaking. — petrichor

Wow, I think you summarized Terrapins main problems astutely well here and yet I disagree with almost everything you wrote in the reply to my last post. I'll get to answering that soon.

Antinatalism isn't a rejection of life, that's pro-mortalism. Antinatalism is the recognition that no matter how much we enjoy or reject life, we don't know what our children will go through and shouldn't take the risk for them — khaled

I suspect that's probably not true for all antinatalists. I get the impression that many simply believe it is better to never have been born, period. But it seems to be primarily a matter of risk for you. Interesting.

So do you think a child should be born if the risks can be mitigated to such a degree that we can be fairly sure that things won't be so bad? What would you eliminate from a future person's life to meet this condition?

I was speaking more to a sense that we embody goodness in simply being pained by evil. It is better that some element of the world actually cares what happens, isn't it? — petrichor

People care about pain is good? Yes.

World B contains more total suffering than World A. But which is a better world? Is it about simply minimizing suffering on a balance sheet? — petrichor

No it isn't. That has never been my position. These opposed to these holistic balance sheet approaches of aggregate suffering. That would be using individuals to simply be calculated aggregate- leaving the individual as just valued as an aggregator. I think even most natalists would agree with that idea. What is rather the case is uniquely, at the procreational decision-making level, there is a chance to prevent ALL future suffering for a future person and to NO COST to any actual living individual (outside the parent's projection of imaginary child that could have been). It is a ghost of what could have been or one's own selfish want for a child versus preventing ALL future harm for another person.

Suppose I am to have a kid and I can choose whether they'll care or not, and I know that if they don't care about anything, they'll suffer less. Should I choose that they won't care? Suppose I can also choose that they'll be so mentally limited that they won't know they'll die, and so will be free of much anxiety. Should I choose that they'll be so limited?

Suppose I could snap my fingers and suddenly all living beings will simply be buried in the ground in safe little pods where they'll be only conscious of the continuous pleasure from machines stimulating their pleasure centers. Would bringing this about mean that I have improved the world?

Is trading consciousness and understanding and caring for pain-reduction always simply and obviously a good thing to do? — petrichor

Now this is an interesting question. I do think that if the world was indeed a paradise, and never had a chance of not being so, there may be room for the natalist argument to make sense. I still don't buy the argument that a best possible world with various bags of mixed pain and pleasure is a world one should bring people into. I also think that at a meta-level, knowing that the set-up of this world is such that we grow from pain, and we get meaning from pain, it is all the more reason to prevent people from being born in the first place. What makes a previous generation the arbiter that "It must be good" that new people should play this game of growth from pain? Isn't this the height of arrogance? You say it to me as if I did not know this is how the game is..I call it Nietzschean- the idea that it is "beyond good and evil" and "beyond pleasure and pain" to bring new people into the world as their existence is somehow "elevated" by the pain that they will endure and cope with. I get all this. I just don't buy the idea that this little growth from pain package (actual major) should be foisted upon an individual.

And if there were no consciousness to suffer to begin with, you might say there would be no reason to have people who care that there is suffering. The world would simply be better off dead. But this ignores all the value in life and the possibilty that it couldn't exist without all the suffering. It might well be the best of all possible worlds. — petrichor

And here I object as well. I see it again as arrogant to assume that parents are the arbiters of value in the world. Value MUST be brought into the world, you and others decry. Why? A world of nothing is nothing. No one to care there is nothing, nothing cares about nothing. This is incredibly myopic and from the point of view of someone ALREADY EXISTING. Of course you identify with the state of being that you already are. BUT future children are not in an already existing state. And thus assuming that the state of nothing is worse than this "best of all possible worlds" of value from suffering, mixed bag, whatever you want to call it, is in a way, foisting this ideology on another. Nothing needs to be saved from nothing. However, once born, one always needs to be saved from one or another situation. They have to cope, deal with, etc. Yet, you will say this is good. But this is not necessary nor is it necessarily good to make others cope or deal with because you find this mixed bag ideology satisfying for yourself (at a particular time).

We are the universe becoming aware of itself, the world waking up. Isn't there some value in the universe coming to wonder what it is, why it is, and so on? Isn't there something more valuable and amazing in a pile of clay that stands up and asks what it is, even if pained, even if afraid, as opposed to a pile of clay that remains forever just a dead pile of uninteresting clay? If you were to witness such a pile of clay rising up, would you just cleanly terminate its consciousness, just put it out of its misery before it can even really get started, saying, "There! That's better!"? — petrichor

Again foisting value that something has to be better than nothing. Actually it's more than that, now you are using the very broad idea of pansychism to justify having more people as an inevitabilty since you think the world is consciousness anyways, so you are just giving it human form, etc. That is the tail wagging the dog, circular reasoning, and the ultimate self-justification.

Some often claim that the world is uncaring, that nothing matters, that nature is coldly indifferent, and they say this with a negative feeling about this lack of caring that they imagine in the world. But only a dead world is so indifferent. A living world is a world that cares. To eliminate all life that might suffer, and especially all higher, intelligent life, is to ensure that the world is indifferent and that nothing matters. If we exist, then at least part of nature cares what happens and things matter. Even the universe itself gains value and becomes something that can be appreciated and wondered at. — petrichor

Again, I don't see how parents should be the arbiters of the "universe caring about itself". People should not be used as "carers" of the universe. Why should people be used at this end?

There is something paradoxical about valuing human beings enough to care enough about their suffering to wish them non-existent. That anything happening to them is worth caring about suggests value that wishing to eliminate their existence seems to ignore. — petrichor

Yes, I care about people's suffering. I know that nothing matters to nothing. There is not future person's existence until you actually create that future human. Thus this argument makes no sense. You are creating the people who care in the first place.

I will end by saying that even though I disagree with nearly everything you said, I welcome your arguments more than the offhand dismissals and basic trolling I see regarding this topic.

You like worrying, complaining, being neurotic, etc. basically, then?

So do you think a child should be born if the risks can be mitigated to such a degree that we can be fairly sure that things won't be so bad? — petrichor

Not "not so bad" but rather, "we know the child will find his own life worthwhile, fulfilling and just overall great most of the time". I don't think that's possible given how we've evolved in most cases. We don't experience much change from a standard level of happiness.

You like worrying, complaining, being neurotic, etc. basically, then? — Terrapin Station

He wasn't complaining and he wasn't worrying about himself nor did he say he liked it. He was saying you lack worrying for the consequences of your actions, at least when it comes to procreation

There is something paradoxical about valuing human beings enough to care enough about their suffering to wish them non-existent. That anything happening to them is worth caring about suggests value that wishing to eliminate their existence seems to ignore — petrichor

This wasn't directed at me but let me make one thing clear. Antinatalism isn't about eliminating people. It's about not bringing in more people. Antinatalism doesn't eliminate, it just doesn't regenerate the population. The burden of proof is on natalists to prove that continuing the existence of a population in a world where pain is possible is ethical. I have not seen a good enough proof for that. The point isn't that life is suffering and bad and should end. The point is that your child might think so. So why risk it for him?

Find me one other situation where people find taking someone from a more to a less secure position without their consent morally ethical. Is signing up people for the hunger games forcefully ethical? I mean, there is a chance they enjoy it with all the fame and glory that awaits them if they win (keyword: IF). And the people that do the recruiting are often people who very much enjoy the hunger games so does that somehow give them licence to force someone else into it?

To me having children is exactly like signing people up for the hunger games. If you weren't asked to take a risk for someone else you shouldn't take it. You can take all the risks you want with YOUR life just not with someone else's (except in special cases where it is kill or be killed but birth is not like that). If someone wants to raise some sort of consent issue as in "the person being signed up for the hunger games is capable of giving consent and the recruiters didn't ask" then would basing the hunger game lottery on pregnancies be ok? As in certain pregnant women are suddenly told "your child will participate in the hunger games 18 years from now. I know he didn't ask for this but hey, the hunger games are so fun, I'm sure he/she'll love it. Besides, we can't ask him right now but I'm sure he would consent. And if he really doesn't like it he can just run towards the centre with a blindfold if you know what I mean"

(that depressed people can kill themselves and so it is ethical to risk creating depressed people is an actual argument I hear a lot by natalists ergo the last line about the hunger game participant killing himself if he doesn't like it. I also often hear "You don't have the right to make life decisions for someone else", the irony)

(that depressed people can kill themselves and so it is ethical to risk creating depressed people is an actual argument I hear a lot by natalists ergo the last line about the hunger game participant killing himself if he doesn't like it. I also often hear "You don't have the right to make life decisions for someone else", the irony) — khaled

Great points. However, the natalist will retort, "But the majority of people like life!" and thus no other argument is deemed necessary.

If you weren't asked to take a risk for someone else you shouldn't take it. — khaled

You create risks for other people in every single thing you do.

Some obvious ones are things like driving, being in public if you might have any sort of contagious illness, building houses, building any sort of device/appliance that people might use, etc.

I dont get it why so many people are offended by antinatalism. Because it is the only rational conclusion. Because life is full of horrible things. And the beautiful things in life are less frequent than suffering.

Because it is the only rational conclusion. — Baskol1

I don't think that any ethical stance is a rational conclusion. I'd say that's a category error.

Its not rational to avoid suffering?

Its not rational to avoid suffering? — Baskol1

Rationality doesn't have anything to do with preferences.

I assume youre a nihilist?

That's not a term I'd use because it's too vague--too many people use it to denote too many different things, with a lot of them being equally common.

I don't believe that there are any objective values, objective meaning, etc.

There are certainly subjective values, meaning, etc.

Maybe, but some values are certainly more useful than others.

I think it is very important to decrease suffering. I think suffering is not something valuable. The less suffering in the world, the better.

Maybe, but some values are certainly more useful than others. — Baskol1

People subjectively feel that way sure, and they feel that way about different things, for different reasons. There aren't right answers there, just ways that people feel.

I think it is very important to decrease suffering. — Baskol1

I don't. I think that "suffering" is way too vague, too.

So i assume you like to suffer? Or why so you think we do not need to reduce suffering?

At the top of every hierarchy of goals there is a goal that is chosen freely in the sense that it is not chosen in order to attain some other goal. The choice of such a goal is certainly regulated by external factors (by the so-called nature) but it is not regulated by internal factors (such as your other goals.)

So if you don't want to die in a month, you better eat something. And if you want to eat something, you better think of ways to find food. Say you decide you want to buy some rice (I don't like rice but that's what came up first.) So if you want to buy some rice, you better find a shop that sells it. And so on and so forth. That's an example of a hierarchy of goals. At the top of that hierarchy is a goal -- to be alive in a month. You chose that goal independently from any other goal. You don't want to be alive in a month in order to attain some other goal . . . you just want to be alive in a month. It's an arbitrary choice mediated only by external factors.

No other goal is telling you it's best to be alive in a month. You might as well just choose to not be alive in a month. Most people don't because they can't -- the need to remain alive is too strong.

And what if they had the ability to choose to die in a month? What would happen? Well, they would all die, and with them, the drive for death. Such people can continue to exist only if they are created or birthed by people who do not think like them or if they give birth to other people before they die (but then again, one must ask, what is the probability that such a strategy will be successful given the environment we live in?)

You create risks for other people in every single thing you do.

Some obvious ones are things like driving, being in public if you might have any sort of contagious illness, building houses, building any sort of device/appliance that people might use, etc. — Terrapin Station

Yes but none of those risks can be reduced significantly by me not being there. And many of them risk providing more good through being useful than harm. I already said that inflicting suffering onto someone else is only permissable is it saves me SIGNIFICANTLY more suffering. Ex: I don't think stealing food from a billionaire if you're starving is morally bad when you know he won't be affected by it

Now let's look at procreation.

Harm inflicted: An entire lifetime's worth
Harm prevented: "Oh but I want kids so baaaaaadly"

Those aren't even close in magnitude.

Now to be fair let's look at procreation in terms of benefits

Benefits: Kids could help others. Most kids enjoy life. Better for you mentally. Keeps the human race (I don't see this as a benefit but maybe you do), etc etc

Now, we have a mixed bag. An act that inflicts great suffering but also likely even more pleasure. An act like that is wrong to commit. Why? Because you don't owe anyone to give them benefits but you owe them not to harm them. That's why robbing a bank to give to the poor is wrong. It has both good and bad aspects however you have no moral obligation to do good deeds but you do have a moral obligation to avoid doing bad ones. That means a mixed bag like procreation or robbing a bank to give to the poor is a definite no.


Again, as I said to Leo a while ago, find the specific individual who I am harming significantly by participating in society and I won't participate in society. On the other hand I can easily find the specific individual you harm by giving birth to them. (Or rather, who you "create an unfortunate situation for" later)

"But the majority of people like life!" and thus no other argument is deemed necessary. — schopenhauer1

"But the majority of forced hunger games participants like it". Not only are both of these quotes straight up wrong, they are blind to what people truely suffering feel like. Sweatshop workers and the poor for example. "The majority of stable middle class people with access to the internet in a 1st world country like life" is a bit better though I still think it's not as obvious as it seems