Why isn't antinatalism a popular philosophy?

[Foreigner]

Admitidly I don't know one way or the other, but I highly doubt government welfare payments to parents is more lucrative than simply not having the kid at all.

Kids cost a fortune. And governments hate giving money back.

Obviously this is going to vary by jurisdiction though. But it doesn't sound very likely to me.

There is a huge belief in the black community that government welfare is the reason why poor black neighbourhoods have exploded into areas filled with social problems. This happened as of the late 60's. The introduction of widespread welfare programs has enabled social dysfunction to persist rather than force people to take responsibility for their actions. Personal responsibility has gone downhill. Modern liberalism blames historical slavery for the modern plight of blacks, but historically, black communities suffered outside violence and racism, but they did not have the degree of material and internalized inequities that they have today.

The theory is incomplete, but similar situations have cropped up all around the world where poor communities get expanded welfare access with each additional child they have.

I'm just going to come out and say it... unless people are actually threatened with the real possibility of their children dying because they can't afford to have them, people will have no deterrent to stop breeding.

Birth control and abortion should be widely available and on demand, and welfare should remain as a standard amount. No bonuses for extra kids. There is no excuse for this in 2019.

 

[JessFR]

It doesn't seem like your post at all addresses if it actually is financially sensible to have children.

Of course, if people believe it is, even if it isn't, they'll still have the kids. I'm just curious for curiosities sake. I find it hard to believe parental welfare payments result in more money than just not having the kids.

Regardless though, one things absolute, which is that I'm absolutely never going to support allowing children to starve or live in total poverty because of the mistakes of their parents.

Either pay the parents, or take away the kids, but no way is it acceptable to me to just give the parents nothing if it means the children live in absolute poverty without food. That's totally unacceptable an answer to me.

No child anywhere in America should have to go without food, shelter, the basic necessities of life. That's not a situation that can be permitted to continue.

 

[Wilson Wilson]

Not according to the Flynn effect. Now I'm the last person to put much stock in the accuracy of IQ tests, but it's enough to bring into question that people are getting dumber.

I doubt they are. People were pretty stupid in the past too.

If you have been keeping up with the Flynn effect you'd know it has actually been reversing since 1990 across the entire developed world.

So if you go by IQ we are observably getting dumber and Idiocracy is right. Keep in mind that the data is clear that the more intelligent or educated someone is, the fewer children they have.



To answer the OP, I believe antinatalism is unpopular simply because humans are emotional, not logical, creatures. If our feelings tell us "having kids is nice" we will do it based on emotions and justify it with "reason" later, even though studies show parenthood reduces happiness and relationship satisfaction and these trends only reverse when the kids move out 18+ years later.



For that matter studies on happiness and marriage show similarly dim patterns: once you get married, happiness does not change at all while relationship and life satisfaction only go down with time. And those stats are from studies that are designed to be biased in favour of marriage by omitting divorced couples for example. They still couldn't show marriage in a positive light despite fudging the stats to be biased towards it!

Marriage and Happiness: 18 Long-Term Studies

Getting married does not make you happier.

www.psychologytoday.com

And of course if you look at those divorced couples omitted from the stats, you get a very depressing picture indeed. Divorce is the number one factor in suicide.

Safe to say I have no plans to either get married nor have kids.

 

[LucidSDreamr]

Probably because people are disinclined towards a philosophy that requires them not to have children.

Even when people for various reasons agree that it would be better if fewer people had kids, they're frequently not going to want to personally contribute to preventing it.

I highly doubt they aren’t having kids because of the ideology of antinatalism

They are more classified as child free.

Antinatalism isn’t really about not having kids because you just don’t want the responsibility of kids which I think it why most ppl that don’t have kids don’t have kids.

Antinatalism is about realizing what a pointless and stupid excercise the meat grinder that is life is, that will generally painfully destroy and torture all new life at some point and at the end; realizing that forcing a new life into the meat grinder for your own selfishness is indeed evil and selfish; then not acting on that out of guilt or conscience.

To me the suffering of one wounded rat in an alley is not worth all of life and history that has existed.

 

[LucidSDreamr]

Given how many fringe philosophies (veganism, anti-fascism) have sprung up in the last 20 years, things like antinatalism are unpopular? Why is that?

This doesn’t answer your question but I just wanted to say

I love anti natalism and efilism.

I feel like the world is so stupid for agreeing to continue to shit out life into the meat grinder that is existence.

I would absolutely elect to never have been born. I would even elect euthanasia if it was more normalized and my wife gave me her blessings and I’m only middle aged. I’ve seen enough of this cycle of killing and suffering to survive only to end up being killed.

Peoples infatuation with their own dopamine hits blinds them to the pointlessness of this barbaric dance happening on earth. Animals, not sure what they are thinking but I see them rippikg eachother to shreds alive as a way of life. It’s not that beautiful when you see animals killing eachother and you kill them also for food. It’s all a big kill or be killed fest. Looking around and seeing this I can’t believe more ppl don’t say “hey this is a really big mistake what has happened on earth with life evolving into existence.”

 

[SeekingOblivion]

It’s hard to stay afloat as a working person. I got my little slice of the pie (house, car etc, can afford groceries and some small indulgences without too much sweat), which I work my arse off to keep. And I can sleep in on my day off. Am I going to flush it all so I can ruin my body, go into debt, get inadequate sleep, spend every spare dime and moment on responsibly raising a child or two? Why no. Some people find boundless incentives to do this though, pushing out another as frequently as possible and certainly squeezing a final one or two out when the youngest reaches 18. Don’t wanna lose that sweet subsidized housing, snap and what the fuck other lame things they garner from this shit lifestyle. For non- immigrant family structures, it is the rich and the poor who see having kids as an advantageous angle in life.

 

[Jnowhere]

I don't really put any stock in IQ tests because they are largely based on educational aptitude. It's also hard to evaluate emotional intelligence that way, which is a more accurate indicator of people's probable life choices.

There are no doctors with 2 digit IQ's, even though many seem like morons they still need educational aptitude. Same with many other professionals, being smart can make you successful.
I think of all the nerds I picked on in school and I bet they are doing a lot better than the special ed kids. If you ride the short bus, your future is bleak.

Emotional intelligence? That if you are a cry baby you are smart?

 

[specialrelativity]

Philosophy as an art or as a science?

 

[Jnowhere]

Philosophy as an art or as a science?

As a social science.

 

[emkee_reinvented]

Given how many fringe philosophies (veganism, anti-fascism) have sprung up in the last 20 years, things like antinatalism are unpopular? Why is that?

Because its the 1-st time i have heard of it ?

The start is right on, fucking should never be associated we reproduction,
neither any other sexual activity.

Fine fuck, 2 kids, no escape for me doomed to old age.
As i not gettin rid of being human no way.
So besides i have also doomed 2 people the same faith.

If you have kids this -ism is as depressing a Techno music.

 

[Jonneh]

I think the question doesn't demand a demographic answer so much as an existential one.

The whole premise of anti-natalism is that life is inherently more painful than pleasurable, even if lots of cognitive biases (relating to remembered experience, etc.) conspire to make us say otherwise. So it's not that because the world is going to hell in a handcart only selected humans should reproduce; it's that nobody should, even at the best of times.

Perhaps because of the mentioned cognitive biases, or perhaps because Benatar is simply wrong, I think most people experience (lots of caveats hiding in that word, admittedly) life to be more positive than negative. Those that don't often don't project their feelings onto others in a way that would make them think that nobody else should reproduce either (although if this is true, Benatar himself is clearly an exception!), or perhaps they think their own children will have a different appraisal than they themselves do, and this factors into their position on anti-natalism.

 

[Jnowhere]

Hey I love my country and there is no way this country should open it's boarders especially with bad infrastructure, too little infrastructure in areas and 10's of millions of needed affordable homes and jobs before any antinationalist bullshit programs to let in millions. We have so much land but the various government entities make building affordable housing basically impossible in left leaning states

 

[foodcrisis]

according to the u.s. census bureau’s current population survey, in 2014, 47.6 percent of women between age 15 and 44 had never had children, up from 46.5 percent in 2012.

i wouldn't consider ~48% 'unpopular'.

alasdair

at first this number sounded shocking to me, but then i realized that with the amount of 15 year olds they have with other younger age groups, some of them will have kids later on.

i feel like there are a lot of people that can't have kids because of mental illness and being on meds, but there are definitely people out there that don't want kids because of ruining the planet or they don't think it's a fair place to bring kids... i'm kind of a rare instance where i never really felt good about having kids cause my hair is thin and i have a cow lick.. people were making fun of my cousins kid a lot early in school and she didn't even have noticably different hair, so i figured if i had a girl they'd call her bald spot or some shit and her life would be ruined... i'd probably have kids even though i'm schizophrenic and pretty immature in some ways even if i didn't have thin hair... i've talked with people about this and there have been girls hitting on me telling me they have really thick hair and would want to have my kid because i never needed braces and have straight teeth... i dunno. i'm a dude, if i had thin hair as a girl i'd just look for a dude with thick hair to have kids with... i worry about the planet, but honestly, if things get that bad, might's'well just have some wars or let people starve to death. that shit is already happening, and it's good to have a lot of people in a place like america or some of the other countries that are less weird in case of war or sickness that kills a lot of people off. i think the only 100% bad thing about america is the drug laws.. i'd much rather live here than some parts of the world. i don't believe that people really thrive and feel good in certain countries the same way they do in places like america. it can even be hard in america... idk... there are anti-natalism sections of reddit though. some people go pretty hard with their opinions.

 

[specialrelativity]

Do you do philosophical proofs with conclusions? Arguments?

 

[LucidSDreamr]

Perhaps because of the mentioned cognitive biases, or perhaps because Benatar is simply wrong, I think most people experience (lots of caveats hiding in that word, admittedly) life to be more positive than negative.

Another way to reframe benetars assymetry (the most important part of it) is that a non existent human cannot miss out on any of the positive. Therefore there is no loss that can be experienced by not coming into existence.

The only loss is on the part of the parents that would be bummed not having a kid. So it’s all about the parents; they take a massive risk of bringing a being into the world that has a very good chance of experiencing extreme suffering. They are selfish.

IMO the suffering of a single rat is not worth all of the ecstacy experienced by all humans in history combined.

 

[fairnymph]

It's called immigration. In countries where the social rules are still very traditional, people are breeding like crazy. Then those people try to move to the west for a better life. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Anti-natalism isn't popular because it's contrary to the growth model of capitalism. The only reason why more people are abstaining from having kids now is because they can't afford them. Most of the time when humans are happy with plenty of food and luxuries, they breed. The lower class breed because they are ignorant. The middle class aren't breeding because the middle class is disappearing, and life is too hard to survive on one's own, let alone add more mouths to feed. The social fabric is taxed to the nth degree.

People in first and second world countries are not having fewer children because they lack money. We have never been as wealthy as we are now. It’s cultural. People are unwilling to sacrifice modern conveniences and luxuries. Childbirth has become horrifically medicalised, with many women terrified of childbearing, & having a family is now seen as unimportant or even low status - especially having a large family. Urbanisation is also a big problem because humans do not breed well in captivity and there aren’t even many apartments with enough rooms for proper families - especially by modern standards in which every child has his own room.

 

[fairnymph]

I agree, individuals are not thinking about the growth model. I am referring more to social policy, i.e. government. People are awarded for breeding, including the utterly impoverished who should not be breeding. They get baby bonuses, welfare and services.

Everyone thinks that their special child will change the world. That logic is how the mental aspect of the reproductive instinct manifests in order to justify having children. I have so many friends who said they would never have kids and then as they reached their mid 30's and their reproductive urges kicked in, you could see all kinds of absurd logic gradually seep in, from the personal to the sociopolitical. They can't see that it's merely biology and not some epiphany they're having. A good example is a friend who, a year ago, somehow decided that it could be fun to have unprotected sex with her partner, despite using protection for years. Now she has twins she can barely care for.

Nobody's child is special. We get a few major paradigm-shifting geniuses in every generation and they are totally spontaneous. Playing it by the numbers hasn't helped humanity. Everyone's child grows up to be another consumer who lives a more or less standard human life. Adding more babies on mass does not contribute to human progress. The people who are making major discoveries and advancements that could truly help the planet are a minority. The rest of us are simply... existing.

I honestly find people whose big life dream is having children to be utterly uncreative. The world would be a better place if people saw through their own biology and chose not to do it. It doesn't have to be everyone, just maybe 1 in 5 people. But... at the end of the day people are just biological robots.

This is factually untrue. So much of the rapid technological progress we’ve seen since the industrial revolution has been due to the massive increase in population. The more people are born, the more high IQ genius innovators exist. And while it’s true that most people are not innovators, in high IQ societies, most people do contribute. The recent dysgenic decline combined with government welfare has resulted in so many useless eaters who are only a drain, if not actively destructive. But if we had better governance and eugenic policies, we’d probably already be colonising other planets at this point.

 

[SotPoker1012]

The drive to reproduce is strong in many people. I've known people that would agree with all or the majority of antinatalist thought, but ended up having kids anyway.

I do think, as human civilization advances, it will likely gain more traction. I've wondered if voluntary extinction is a solution to the fermi paradox. Eventually a civilization as a whole could be forced to stare existential angst in the face, and I'd bet many of them opt for non existence.

 

[Cheshire_Kat]

Because we after all is said or done we are all animals.

 

[PixelParalysis]

I clicked this thread cause I was actually surprised to hear that antinatalism is unpopular. I don't know a single one of my peers who want kids. Alot of them view it as imoral to do so because of the state of the world. Maybe it's just my crowd? There's also the whole 4B movement in Korea that went viral In America which I would argue to falls under that category. I'd argue though that alot of younger Gen z feels that way and I guess we'll find out in the next 5 years. I personally will definitely not be having kids but that's cause I personally don't want that responsibility over a human life. I'm not gentle enough to be a good parent.