this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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I already cut my balls off, my wife wants to cut of hers too, but we live in a patriarchal society where men can choose what their do with their bodies while women need two kids to do the same.
I'm antinatalist, but don't hate children. Would adopt, but my wife have not interest and isn't something I care that much.
You aren’t a leftist if you are an anti-natalist. Anti-natalism is based on the assumption that life is more bad than good which is based on subjective views of the world (and has no basis in actual science). It’s not materialist. Secondly, anti-natalism is anti-human and therefore anti-worker. You cannot be a leftist anti-natalist much as you can’t be a leftist racist. Anti-natalism is extremely reactionary.
Anti-natalism isn't inherently anti-human or anti-worker, that is laughable.
Yes, it is. Anti-natalism posits that people shouldn’t be born. That means they do not want people to be workers in the future, making it a reactionary anti-worker position to take.
Pretty fucked up to reduce all people to simply just "worker"
I have no clue what you mean
That's an extremely simplistic and slightly childish interpretation.
If anything, I despise the voluntary human extinction movement. That doesn't preclude being smart about having biological children, and it sure as fuck doesn't stop be from being a communist.
Having biological children is probably inherently selfish, but that doesn't make having children an inherently bad or evil thing. That's my entire point.
You aren’t a communist as you reject dialectical materialism by upholding an ideological framework that analyzes non-beings on the same level as beings. That’s not materialism but religion.
You're a clown and I won't dignify your nonsense word salad with a reply.
Ah yes, anything that you disagree with is “word salad”. What a fantastic way to analyze everything. I’m sure that will lead to correct understandings of the world…
You're just projecting and digging yourself a deeper hole, quit your coping and don't be a douche.
No clue how any of that is relevant…. I have most certainly been accusing everyone’s answers as being “word salad” because I can’t read a single sentence and I most certainly “coping”. (What about as I’m not positing a position as occupying a different niche or position than it actually does to defend ideological positions that are in contradiction to one another? I’m not so sure but I definitely am doing it as another user on Lemmy said so)
I literally explained my position and my view multiple times, your strawmanning and refusing to understand isn't my fault or my problem.
Who cares if it is selfish or not, why does it matter at all? In the end it has still nothing to do with Anti-Natalism. The name itself is nomen est omen and says everything needed to know. Your point is not anti-natalism but a mere moral observation, why life is creating more life. You can be easily misunderstood if you confuse this terms
I wasn't confusing the terms, and I and lots of people can and should care. That's why I reiterate that I take a softer approach. I think more people should be aware that it's perfectly okay to not have biological children, and that choosing to have biological children isn't inherently good or altruistic, and does have some element of selfishness.
I figure that if people understood all of that upfront (and ofc living in a socialist society) that child abuse will drastically decrease when all the cards are out on the table, so to speak.
As the saying goes, "every child needs a parent, but not every parent needs a child".
I call myself a partial anti-natalist, the same as classifying myself as a Marxist-Leninist, it's a specific addition, alteration or subset of a larger category or umbrella.
Most Marxists, for instance, wouldn't want to be associated with Pol Pot.
I and lots of other people didn't consent to being born, even if that is a ridiculous-sounding claim. Obviously, no one can consent to that, but every life should be treated with the upmost care and possibility, and life should be something that everyone can take part in and have a good time. And sometimes I do regret that I exist, even if that sounds stupid. But I think even most people with depression and shit can generally agree that we'd rather be born, than not.
I maintain that anti-natalism isn't nearly the same as wanting all of humanity dead, or that there aren't eventual positives to birth.
I think its about concent, I don't think you should force someone into life just because you want it.
Someone who doesn't exist can't give consent. That's a non sequitur. See this for some general sense on the matter on the vibe that I have again the consent argument. There is an example on the thread that goes about rape and non-consent and that is a non-equivalence.
I don't understand the fact that because someone exists, therefore it can't concent so it's dosen't matter. Like, if we had technology for genetic manipulation, and someone who dosen't exists so it's can't concent to be birth without eyes, arms and legs, so it would be OK to do it? Maybe the problem is more about branding, if I would say exactly the same without saying the word "antinatalist" nobody would bat an eye.
Again, consent doesn't matter, as none can be given by this non-existing person. On the other hand, that is to be considered cruel and gratuitous.
Let's just go on a tangent: we, humans, the apex of this planet, do play God quite often, and as such, we are the ones that draw the line on this type of stuff. See, for example, mice, which are used for bio studies for a myriad of ailments. So, the genetic engineering already exists. Most people just don't realize it.
"But they are different species". Yes, and mammals too. So similar to us, in fact, that we use them to study our diseases. We even "pre-bake" them with cancer, if it's needed for research. Go closer to humans and stuff start to get wronger. Big apes are a no-go, Rhesus monkeys, on the other hand, need approval from bioethics boards. We draw the line where in the tree of life animals start to be too like us to matter.
So, why only be antinatalist and not vegan as well? Is human suffering the only thing that matters? I haven't even considered invertebrates for that matter.
I'll end this tangent about genetic engineering and speciecism here.
And no, antinatalism is not about branding. The whole ideology is moot. I do have friends who have this instance. I say it to their face that it is either defeatist, conservatist and, in general, a shit for brains idea. It's just neomalthusianism, all over again. Here, have a link from Reddit on that.
And, as I like to say, again, to my friend's face: go seek psychiatric and psychological help. Accepting this type of ideology is, in my own experience being on that side of the argument, a symptom of depression. You see life as completely sad and full of woe, when it's just so much more.
A Reddit link was detected in your comment. Here are links to the same location on alternative frontends that protect your privacy.
Your strawmanning is reaching incredibly ludicrous levels. I think you might be projecting.
You're being a complete tool and douchebag to driving_crooner.
In the actual world, dominated by the bourgeoisie, there is some consent between people and scientiest, that this would be not ok. It is not been seen as ethical. What is ethical or not is nothing more than a artificial line made by humans and depends greatly on material conditions. Especially after human experiments in Japan and Germany.
But the question, if it is ok to artificially create a human with so many disabilities or simply give birth to human, are things which are not related at all. Only if you really equal the human existence itself as a form of suffering, then it has nothing to do with marxism at all and is some Buddha or similar idealistic stuff. But even they are not against giving birth to children.
This are different things. Anti-natalism has nothing to do with being against artificially creating people with the aim of making them suffer as much as possible.
Someone who doesn’t exist doesn’t have the ability to consent so the fact they don’t is irrelevant. Something existing determines if we take it into account as Marxist. That’s a major part of being a leftist
Someone potentially existing has weight and meaning, too.
No, it doesn’t. They don’t exist therefore there is no weight in their existence. Something that does not exist has no moral component to it whatsoever
So what you're saying is that potential children have no rights that should be protected, no childcare, no healthcare infrastructure set up ahead of time, no ordinances banning or restricting smoking, no land usage and zoning laws, just pop out kids like it's going out of style and they deserve no equal consideration?
You have to be trolling.
No, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Those who don’t exist have no moral considerations whatsoever as measuring any experience of a non-being is impossible
Not that I ever took your pseudo-intellectual contrarianism seriously, but this is the point that you lost me. I genuinely hope that you take a chill pill and self-reflect. I hope you find some kind of peace, in the future.
And I am not the one who needs to find peace as I am not upset by the basic concepts of Marxism and biology
If someone cannot experience anything then the conditions of reality are irrelevant. They do not exist and therefore cannot be a moral agent. How in the world is this contrarian? Almost every single ideological or philosophical framework I can think of accepts this concept. It’s essentially universal.
That's doesn't negate the lack of concent.
But surely, by this logic, nobody consents to being born, so what does it matter?
The implications for child and societal welfare.
Edit: "but who cares?!" such a disgusting thought-terminating hollow canard.
You're putting words in my mouth. If your implication is that children do not consent to being born, you have to also agree that literally nobody CAN consent to being born or not. So what is the point of you brining this up if not for the indirect implication that having children is inherently wrong as it does not factor in an unobtainable level of consent? I am actually interested in hearing how you would resolve this consent issue.
As Mao said, reality is full of contradictions, and contradictions aren't a neat or simplistic thing, there is duality and opposites in everything, and two dialectics can be true at the same time.
Of course no one can consent to being born.
As I say, I don't necessarily view having biological children as being inherently wrong. Selfish, yes. But not inherently "wrong". That's why I say partial anti-natalism. Just as I am not just a communist, but a specific subset. I don't see what's hard to understand about this. I'm not trying to be a dick, this is genuinely easy for me to "get".
That’s not materialist. Consent can’t exist for those that don’t exist so in a material lens we can only analyze those that do in fact exist. The conception of the theoretical and non-existent individual’s consent can’t be materialist and couldn’t be upheld by an actual leftist.
Materialism is more than just raw physical reality, even though materialism is the majority of that. I find it hard to believe that deciding the shape of the next generation isn't materialist.
Plenty of people and societies make quite a fuss of men sterilising themselves, it sucks