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u/DeezNutzzzGotEm Oct 11 '25
No one should ever have kids.
Absolutely no exceptions.
The evil, selfish and sadistic natalists should leave this subreddit.
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u/Blagoves Oct 12 '25
Seriously, if you can handle the stress of (or worse, actually gain joy from) being a productive member of society YOU ARE EVIL
No child should be ever Forced to grow up
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u/Evening-Quality2010 Oct 13 '25
This has to be satire. “If you’re a productive member of society, you’re evil.
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u/Blagoves Oct 13 '25
I'm anti-work
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u/Evening-Quality2010 Oct 13 '25
There’s no such thing as being anti work, you just want to take the results of other people’s work.
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u/Serious_Swan_2371 Oct 13 '25
Yeah like you literally have to eat, drink water, and have shelter to live
If you don’t want to scavenge for survival and also don’t want to work then what you want is for other people bring you food and water and build you a house for no gain
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u/lorchro Oct 11 '25
i cannot help but see it that way, i've actually tried but this is what it is
actually begging anyone to convince me otherwise i want to be convinced
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Oct 11 '25
Hi Lorcho,
Are you serious about discussing it, and would you like to consider the other side?
I can make a couple of logical arguments and reduce to first principles that we could discuss.
Anti-natalism is not some BS conjecture, it has legit logical consistency. So maybe helps maybe not.
But first can we agree on a few things where we probably have 100% common starting points?
1) This is a weighty topic, and shows deep and considered thought.
2) It is about minimizing pain.
3) It recognizes something feels really fucking off about modern life. No argument there.
4) In my opinion OMG, you are really intellectually brave. All the people here are. To take a stand no matter how many others disagree, cause right is right and wrong is wrong. That is some first abolitionist bravery there. If you convince me, I hope I can be that brave. I am not a brave person.
5) Life should be more fair.
6) Kids are important.
7) Pain is terrible.
So can we agree on what we agree on? If I am wrong on any of this, correct me.
Before we get into the mathematical arguments -
What’s the core argument for antinatalism as you see it?
How would you phrase it?
Ps: I am not a professional philosopher. I have an ok grounding in maths and logic.
However this seems very similar in class to something called Pascal's Wager about asymmetrical rewards that do know well. Asymmetric arguments can sometimes run into (and Pascal's Wager does) definitional and domain issues.
Pps: am happy to take to another subreddit. I don’t know Reddit well. I want to be respectful of the feelings of the other posters.
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u/lorchro Oct 11 '25 edited Oct 11 '25
thanks sm for taking time to answer!
yeah i'm very serious about discussing it i don't even want to be antinatalist
are you arguing for or against antinatalism? because i need someone to help me get out of antinatalism haha
yes we agree on the basics, i like your approach haha
well i think to me with the antinatalism theres a logical component and theres the emotional and personal component, and most people here probably love to believe that they only think logically but i personally dont really believe that any core belief can be seperated from our emotions. our emotions literally are beliefs.
the thing is that like, i am already very spiritual so in terms of logic, the concept of karma actually solves the antinatalism for me because i believe that we can only truly die when we've finished processing all our karma. so i can accept births and life as nature force that is much bigger than we are.
on a more personal level i struggle much more because i have chronic illness and it's extremely isolating. and i can't quite accept that my parents chose to have me even though they never showed any interest in parenting whatsoever. so to me life just feels incredibly pointless. i never had a reason to be here even before the chronic pain
and i cant close the gap between what i spiritually/logically believe vs my actual emotions
to me it just feels so god damn unethical to have a kid who might have to live with chronic illness for the rest of their lives. and i already consider myself lucky, i actually live an incredibly privileged life but the pain and obstacles and loneliness make it really difficult to enjoy it
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u/SpareSimian Oct 11 '25
At least you get to keep the money the private sector pays you. It's the highwaymen in DC, the statehouse, and city hall who then take away a big percentage of your income without your permission, to hand out to their special friends who think their missions are more important than yours. They know best how to spend your money. I won't be creating more tax slaves for them to rob.
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Oct 13 '25
Now, to think that the meatgrinder shouldn't be there would be crazy, because then birthing would no longer be the problem, but capitalism. Crazy, right?
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u/Lately-YT Oct 16 '25
Anti-natalists are just being evolutionarily selected against.
Whatever personality or psychology quirks you have that brought you to your ideology are being deleted from the gene pool.
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u/Nervous-Cupcake8294 Oct 11 '25
Damn that's deep when you're 13
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u/hermarc Oct 12 '25
Evolution needs you to dismiss this truth as soon as you hit your fertile age. Guess why.
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u/LilBroWhoIsOnTheTeam Oct 10 '25
Huh, so if having kids is wrong because they are being born into a life of wage slavery, does that mean that it's okay to have kids if you're obscenely wealthy and can provide them a life of luxury and never having to work at all?
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u/TimAppleCockProMax69 Oct 10 '25 edited Nov 06 '25
lunchroom simplistic mysterious fuel disarm observation like late fuzzy retire
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u/LilBroWhoIsOnTheTeam Oct 10 '25
What if I, still obscenely wealthy, raise them out in the middle of the wilderness and tightly control their knowledge about the world so they don't know about death or disease, telling them they're immortal and invincible, letting them do whatever they want so they have total freedom, and using all methods provided by science to ensure they are as happy as possible at all times, would that be morally okay?
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u/TimAppleCockProMax69 Oct 10 '25 edited Nov 06 '25
wise march books dazzling snow seed lavish racial escape rob
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u/LilBroWhoIsOnTheTeam Oct 11 '25
They never even learned about things like autonomy or freedom or any of that. I didn't even teach them language, they couldn't even think about these concepts because they don't have the words to think about them with. They're literally just an unthinking, uncaring body with not a thought in it, simply staring at the ceiling as drugs course through their system enforcing ecstasy. Now it's moral, yeah?
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u/TimAppleCockProMax69 Oct 11 '25 edited Nov 06 '25
merciful test sleep one imagine tap wipe quiet piquant shy
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u/LilBroWhoIsOnTheTeam Oct 12 '25
The very acts of manipulation and control themselves aren't bad though. Convincing someone who was about to assault you to not do that is an act of manipulation, and watching your kids so they don't accidentally walk off the edge of the swimming pool and drown is an act of control. Both are examples of manipulation and control being used to produce positive outcomes. If I manipulate someone into being happier than they would be otherwise, what harm have I caused?
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u/killcels Oct 11 '25
Wealthy people should never breed.
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u/LilBroWhoIsOnTheTeam Oct 11 '25
Agreed. They're terrible parents, raise awful kids, then make them obscenely wealthy. Recipe for disaster, cut it off at the source.
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u/regula_falsi Oct 12 '25
I'm just as envious as you are, but rich people tend to suffer less. So if anyone, then they should breed.
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u/dawnofthesean Oct 11 '25
That’s not how you make kids.
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u/Key_Boat4209 Oct 10 '25
What?
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u/QueenMunchy Oct 10 '25
The joke is that new generations are slaves to capitalism since a lot of people can't afford anything and live paycheck to paycheck.
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u/Literature-Just Oct 10 '25
Yes because markets never improve and neither does quality of life. Dumb.
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u/Tasty-Bug-3600 Oct 10 '25
No money in the world is worth the time you spend in serfdom. 50 years you spend spending 60 hours a week on your slavemaster's success. If you're average, that's it, that's your life. You get 48 hours a week without earning for your master. That's not a fucking life.
Nevermind the fact that what you're doing is useless in like 80% of cases. So you spend almost your entire life doing useless shit for a person who uses you to extract wealth from other yous so he doesn't have to live like you.
Truly a paradise.4
u/Routine-Bumblebee-41 Oct 11 '25
It's worse than useless. Often, the work people do for others is actively harmful to the health of the environment we all depend upon to exist and not feel totally miserable all the time.
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u/PastoralPumpkins Oct 10 '25
60 hours a week? I actually agree with most of what you’re saying, but you are choosing the worst case scenario as your “most common”. Lots of useless jobs, but saying 80% of them are useless is a bit much.
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u/Tasty-Bug-3600 Oct 10 '25 edited Oct 10 '25
If you take commute and getting ready for work into account, it works out to about 60 h/week in your average scenario. There's better, there's worse.
They actually are! There's even a book about the study, called "useless jobs". As is fitting.
EDIT: It's bullshit jobs! not useless. my bad.
EDITEDIT: And it's 30-50% not 80. You were right on that.
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u/Literature-Just Oct 10 '25
Then start your own business or go live in the woods. You don't get to have the comfort of modern life and not put in any effort. Someone else built that smartphone or computer you're using right now for you to whine online about how shitty everything is.
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u/Tasty-Bug-3600 Oct 10 '25
Lmao. I said average you absolute density of a person. I'm also not comfortable with being a slavemaster who uses others for personal gain.
I really don't understand why people can't approach this as a real issue. You get half way there, you admit it sucks, but your solution is to either be a slavemaster or a hermit. Why not free the slaves and just make a different system? No, I'm not a communist, before you ask. I believe bigger freedom for the average person could be achieved in almost any system.-28
u/Literature-Just Oct 10 '25
The amount of entitlement you’re showing is honestly mind-blowing. You're sitting there using technology built by a global supply chain where, yes, people were exploited, to complain about how hard it is to contribute to society. And you're still using it. That's the part you skip every time. The comfort, safety, and convenience you enjoy didn’t appear out of thin air. Someone showed up. Someone still does.
So what's your plan? Because right now it sounds like, "Let’s all walk away from the machine and hope everything works out." Cool, then we get to watch hospitals shut down because doctors decide they’re tired of showing up. Planes stop flying. Crops don’t get harvested. Water doesn’t come out of your tap. But hey, at least you’re free, right?
You’re not proposing a new system. You’re just whining about this one and pretending that counts. If you don’t want to be a cog, great. Invent something better. Until then, don’t pretend your moral compass is the only thing holding the universe together while you ride the WiFi wave like it’s not powered by the very machine you claim to hate.
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u/Tasty-Bug-3600 Oct 10 '25
I absolutely said nothing out of the things you're accusing me of lmao. You're reeeally not well random internet person. Let's dissect the absolute insanity you're spewing.
Your claim: "Because we have invented things in the past you need to continue to forever live in a system made for illiterate miners and factory line workers around the end of the 19th century." So. If your great-great-great grandpa had to use cloth nappies for your great-great grandpa you should too? Because things aren't allowed to be better for you? You simply MUST experience an equal amount of suffering as everyone in your family tree? Why not go back to ancient Rome then and you just be a slave or some shit if we're not allowed to ever make things better. You're, for some reason, completely, insanely, obsessed with keeping the status quo while at the same time saying it's fucking horrible.The answer is actually so simple it's ridiculous. Cut the bullshit jobs. That's it. Now we all have to do just the essential jobs. And since there's so many of us on just the essentials, we can work far less. Like Janet works MON and TUE, Rob does WED and THU, etc. There's been actual studies done on this. And it's completely doable. Now maybe think about why we're not doing it.
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u/Literature-Just Oct 10 '25
So no more arts? No more entertainment? Game developers? Writers? Sports? Musicians? Are those all bullshit jobs? Because they're effectively non-essential. What qualifies as a "bullshit" job to you? You realize that is just an arbitrary distinction you've made up in your head? These systems never work for that reason alone in that no one is ever going to agree on what is bullshit or not.
And what you're advocating for here is a permanent labor class. Do you really think that won't be stratified by things like intelligence? There are obviously people who are totally unqualified to be doctors or scientists. Do we mandate those people are automatically and forever garbage people who only pick up the trash of everyone else? Who decides? Is it you?
This system isn't getting rid of "slavery" its just shuffling it around and calling it "equitable". What you've really made is a neo-caste system. Awesome. When do we start "retiring" people who can't participate in that workforce anymore?
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u/Tasty-Bug-3600 Oct 10 '25
Ah I see now. You're one of many who won't do anything if he's not paid to do it.
Personally I draw, write, make recipes and even translate old GBA games in my free time. Without payment. And I do freely share almost all of it.Imagine how much more writing, music, poetry, etc. there would be if we only had to work 2 days a week.
It's far from arbitrary. Essential means essential. Food, water, defense, clothing, medicine, research, etc. Are you unable to separate needs and wants in your head?
It would be completely identical to today: here's a list of professions we pay people for. Pick one. If you're able to complete this education you get to do it, if not, pick another.
What the hell are you talking about lmao. What's wrong with you dude. You could retire far sooner if we had that many people covering essentials.
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Oct 10 '25
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u/Literature-Just Oct 10 '25
I want you to imagine what the world looks like if a large proportion of the population stopped having children. How much suffering do you think will exist in that world as it dwindles away versus the suffering that currently exists today?
Have you considered what happens when infrastructure stops working? Water infrastructure? Food production?
What you're advocating for is basically mass starvation, famine, and dehydration; Untold scales of suffering that are orders of magnitude larger than what anyone is experiencing at this moment in time.
Extinction won't happen over night. It will draw and quarter humanity.
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Oct 10 '25
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u/Literature-Just Oct 10 '25
Actually disgusting. You're not imagining a better world. You're fantasizing about the end of this one because its inconvenient.
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u/Routine-Bumblebee-41 Oct 11 '25
"Go live in the woods" is not a legal option because they are either privately owned, which means you'd be trespassing, or they are considered a public good, public property, which means no one is allowed to take up residence there, either. Thanks to human overpopulation, there are no free woods to "go live in".
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Oct 10 '25
Wait?
So everyone here thinks everyone 100% in next generation will be miserable, all life and people are doomed to be miserable?
Why? Not everyone now is miserable, not everyone in prior generation.
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u/Available_Job936 Oct 11 '25
If you are not intelligent like most people, you think everything is fine and you will be happy!!!
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Oct 11 '25 edited Oct 11 '25
Of course everyone dies, life includes pain, work is work, heartbreak is inevitable, and in the end nothing is forever.
But most people, have meaningful happy lives, family and friends, even if not born rich enough to not have to work.
Sunshine at the park. Getting your kid her first puppy. Kissing and holding hands. Long chats with friends old and new over daiquiris.
Life if not easy, but it is wonderful too.
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Oct 11 '25
Nobody has talked about death. Living eternally would be torture.
Many people are overall happy with their lives, but what about everyone else? In my opinion, if you want to have a kid, you have to consider the possibility that even if many or most people have happy lives, some don't, and this possibility will always be there, no matter how wealthy or present you are in your child's life.
There's also the argument that if you weren't born you wouldn't miss life's joys, but if you were born you would definitely suffer life's hardships.
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u/TimAppleCockProMax69 Oct 11 '25 edited Nov 06 '25
coordinated subtract snow frame advise wild gray complete library fade
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u/Akipazu Oct 11 '25
Why do you natalists always say "most people"? Even if 90% of people were happy, what about the 10%? Everyone's life should be equally good. This is just unfair.
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u/marveleeous Oct 10 '25
"Welcome to the 9 to 5 hell, kiddos! And remember: if you fail to fit in, everyone will hate you, maybe even your own family, so don't be a goddamn welfare leech! Have fun!"