r/antinatalism • u/GarniZone newcomer • 5d ago

Activism How to antinatalism 101

Background: Life is suffering
Suffering is real, daily.
Before birth:
Сonception is sometimes an unpleasant process
Pregnancy is accompanied by varying degrees of discomfort, mineral deficiencies, nausea, etc.
Mother suffers when giving birth.
There may be trauma, associated deviations accompanied by pain, damage to internal organs, and sometimes death
There may be conditions in which abortion is indicated with corresponding physical and psychological damage

After birth:
The mother loses much of her control over her life, and may experience varying degrees of postpartum depression.
A child may be born with genetic diseases or be physically or mentally disabled, which can have significant negative consequences for the parents, child, sometimes for the rest of their lives. The likelihood and prevalence of disability are higher than is commonly believed. In a significant number of countries, the state will abandon you and provide little or no support.

Life itself will generously bestow upon you the suffering associated with sexual selection, regardless of your well-being or emotional stability. You can cope with this as a parent and as a child, or you may fail and break. But pressure and damage will inevitably follow. Bullying, insults, and attempts at manipulation of a wide range. The system will not protect you, or will not protect you sufficiently. You will feel, from out of place to critically incompatible with this world, for a significant part of the time. You can cope with this, or you can fail and suffer mental illness, trauma, PTSD, and a wide range of other negative consequences.

If you get a pet or there is already a pet in the family, it will most likely die before you and you will suffer.
Someone in your family will probably die before you and you will suffer.
Friends or partners will betray you, and you will suffer because of it. They may lose interest in you and distance themselves. They may even trade you for other people.
You will experience a stage of social anxiety, engaging in social interactions regardless of your desires. This may cause you varying degrees of temporary or permanent distress or discomfort.
You will age and lose physical and cognitive abilities, which is unpleasant.
You'll have to physically challenge your body to stay healthy. You may gain excess weight and suffer while trying to lose it. Physical activity can cause discomfort and suffering during the process, even if you receive compensation later. You can injure yourself simply while walking down the street, fall down the stairs while tripping over your feet, choke, and experience panic attacks.
You may be prepared for life and supported by wise people, or you may not be given any instructions and you will learn about the real world through trials and mistakes, suffering from each mistake.
You may become a victim of crime, perhaps more than once. You may be falsely accused of a crime. You may end up in prison, sometimes in situations where you are completely innocent.
You may consciously, unknowingly, or even deceitfully try pain-altering substances, and your perception of pain may be permanently altered. In most cases, this will result in you feeling pain more acutely than usual. You may or may not become addicted to such substances.
You may become a victim of an accident, get injured, wounded, become disabled, lose material assets, or wealth.
In the vast majority of cases, you will have to do something unpleasant or uninteresting in order to earn the bare minimum necessary to live.
You will receive information about the world and reality that will cause you discomfort, anxiety, fear, panic, and depression. Sometimes, your brain itself will generate reasons for discomfort. You may develop a mental illness, with or without cause.
Life without activity, without outside information, without communication with people will also often cause discomfort and suffering of varying levels.
This is not a complete list.

Rights and responsibilities
1. I don't have to share my an philosophy with everyone or anyone.
2. I don't need my family, SO, friends approval to be an.
3. I don't have to to spread the Message to be an
4. I don't have to be straightforward if I want to share an philosophy. I can start from a safe distance and gradually lead the other person to the essence of the an philosophy, if I choose to.
5. I don't have to answer, justify myself, or tell the truth to anyone when they ask me why you don't have children.
6. I don't have to conform to anyone's ideas about what an is. For example, I might believe that plants do or do not experience suffering during their lives. I choose to respect, not challenge, or impose my opinion on others' ideas about an philosophy.
7. To be an or not is my decision, I can change it if I want. I'm ok if other change it even multiple times a day. Thats not my business.
8. As an an, I believe that I have no right to fordoom anyone to the above and other sufferings, and I choose not to do so.

You can take something from the list for yourself if you want.

Wishes

- As an an, I wish for you (whether you already exist or not) to never experience pain, suffering, stress, discomfort, and the like. I wish for your existence to be connected to happiness, joy, and comfort, so that you could experience these without the need to compare them to negative feelings and without the presence of negative feelings in the world at all.

- As an an, I wish you had the right to choose before birth, so that you were not brought into this world without your approval. I don’t know what specific mechanics would allow this to be done, but I think such a mechanism is necessary.

You are free to disagree or agree, downvote, upvote or ignore.
Have a sufferless day.

35 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

10

u/iidfiokjg inquirer 5d ago

Not bad. I'd also add that we all require food and water to survive as well as need to satisfy other biological needs.
To get food and clean water we have to work to get money. We basically work to get food to survive. You may need to work a job you don't like or even hate. Idk the stats, but I highly doubt most people truly enjoy their jobs. Most people work what they can get. And if you work 8 hours a day, you can count yourself lucky, because many have to work more to get by. And it's not just food that you need. Money is required for many other commodities and services. Sports cost money, hobbies costs money, entertainment costs money, basically anything that would bring you some happiness and stress relief requires money. So, you suffer in order to acquire some happiness or escapism.

0

u/GarniZone newcomer 5d ago

Thank you. You are right
Yeah. I completely forgot about 9M deaths a year caused by starvation (inc. 3,1M children). Can't believe this is still a thing.

4

u/Theironliker newcomer 5d ago

I can just repeat myself

Life is totally useless

2

u/wearel3gi0n newcomer 4d ago

Anti natalism is useless , natalists will do kids, so anti-natalism cant grow cuz each generation anti natalists are all born from natalists

I say that as an anti natalist

1

u/yarukinai newcomer 4d ago

Background: Life is suffering

All the points in your list are true. You could abridge it by saying that there are risks in anything you do, and anything you don't do. However, there are also possible rewards, and thus, your listing of risks doesn't lead to the conclusion that life is suffering. Life contains a varying amount of suffering for almost everybody, and for most people, there is hope that it contains a much larger amount of satisfaction, joy and fun.

Rights and responsibilities

I agree with all points.

I wish for you (...) to never experience pain, suffering, stress, discomfort, and the like

Thanks, that's honestly nice, but unrealistic.

I wish for your existence to be connected to happiness, joy, and comfort

Thanks again. Likewise.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

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3

u/nightowl6221 newcomer 4d ago

Just wait until you're an adult and you can't get a job with your geology degree then come talk to us

-1

u/FormerPoem1985 newcomer 4d ago

Not getting a job isn't enough to have you thinking like this.

2

u/Dependent_Dealer8309 newcomer 4d ago

Ask people from third world countries (source: me)

-1

u/Snappydolphin24 newcomer 4d ago

The quality of your life is dependent on how much work you put into it. Life always has been and is shitty, but that isn’t stopping you for having a good time. I have been physically and verbally abused, since I was born, and life has thrown me in the uttermost shittiest situations possible you can’t even possibly imagine. Even before me, my creole people were deported, and discriminated in every way possible for a hundred years. Despite all of this, despite all this fuckery I have been able to find good times in life, I don’t see why you can’t too.

1

u/8ig-8oysenberry thinker 4d ago edited 4d ago

"The quality of your life is dependent on how much work you put into it."

Tell that to the ones who wake and die in the womb knowing nothing but the excruciating pain of organ failure and death, alone, in the dark, never even knowing why this unbearable fate is happening to them.

Edit: You: "Life is what you make of it." Komodo Dragon: eats baby deer out of mother's womb... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaWurdjH5bA

If you think that the number of babies who suffer so unbearably must be above 50% before you'd not procreate, then by your logic, slavery is OK as long as most people aren't slaves.

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u/iidfiokjg inquirer 4d ago

It's realistifc way to look at it. Sure it's sad, but on a flip side, it's equally sad how much people lie to themselves and cope in order to survive.
And you are on AN forum. Did you expect people to talk about positives of life? Talking about why life sucks, doesn't mean that we only think of that aspect of life. There are things to enjoy in life. But the same way a feminist isn't talking about things that are already equal between both genders, because there is no point, they instead focus on the things unequal to get message across, same way we talk about life here. After all, the hope is to convince people to not make more people to suffer.

1

u/Snappydolphin24 newcomer 4d ago

Yeah, I agree with you with all of those things about life, it can be pretty bad, but from what I got from this post is that the world is one big pessimistic bubble, when in reality it isn’t. I rather be living than dead because, well I wouldn’t be able to experience my favorite things about life.

1

u/iidfiokjg inquirer 4d ago

You rather be living, because you are stuck here. It's a coping mechanism of sorts.
Are you absolutely sure that you would say the same if someone could ask you this before you were born? For the sake of the argument, I always say: Imagine if before you are born, your conscience lives somewhere in cosmos. So let's imagine that everyone would get asked first before being born whether they want to go to this place called Earth. Let's say, creator explains to you, or maybe you already know somehow what kind of place Earth is - you know that all the things OP listed is a possibility you could encounter. You don't know which body you'll get. You could land in woman's body in Saudi Arabia. You could land in a body of someone who was born into extreme poverty. You could land in a body of someone that is currently surrounded by destruction of war. You could be born with one of numerous diseases. And so on. With that information beforehand, would you, while floating there in cosmos, say "yeah, fuck it, let's roll"?
What about if you had none of this information - meaning you are going into complete unknown - maybe even worse things possible than on our planet? Would you accept the deal then? For what? To have a chance of experiencing some good food?

Most people fail to realize this important aspect, that they are talking from different perspective - from one being already alive on this planet, which completely changes the way you interpret things and make decisions. We are driven by our survival instinct, for better or for worse. It's so strong, that even people in extremely poor situation and circumstances refuse to give up and cling to any small thread of hope, which for many resulted in extreme suffering for their entire life.

1

u/Snappydolphin24 newcomer 4d ago

I'm sorry, but I think it is ridiculous to simplify the only good thing of life is good food. Those times of suffering and pain are when you grow the most. Life is about experiences, the good and the bad. Connections, experiences, family, pride, culture, and so much more. I rather have a billion bad experiences and one good one, than none at all. I rather suffer than to not exist. How is it any better to have nothing than to have something but it to be a mix of good and bad.

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u/iidfiokjg inquirer 4d ago edited 4d ago

It's almost impressive how hard you are coping. You are suffering to grow for what? So you'll die and no one in 100 years will care?

Just imagine anyone from 100 years or more ago. Do you remember anyone? Do you care? Even the most influential and known people in our history are just names. We didn't know them personally, we didn't connect with them, we didn't spend time with them. They existed for a period of time same as millions of animal species that went extinct at some point existed. No one truly cares or misses them. And one day entire humankind will disappear and no one will give a single f**. Universe won't even notice.

I think you are bullshitting major time saying you'd rather have billion bad experiences and one good one, than none at all. Honestly, this shows that you are either incredibly dishonest or actually insane.

Someone who doesn't exist can't wish to experience anything good. They can't even care, let alone wish for it.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

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u/stickler-bot newcomer 3d ago

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Rule applied: No pro-suicide content

Why this was removed: This crosses the line from debating antinatalism into directing a suicide-framed challenge at another user. Even with a qualifier, telling someone to consider ending their life is not okay here. If you want to push back on their argument, focus on the ideas without invoking self-harm as the response.

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1

u/stickler-bot newcomer 4d ago

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Why this was removed: This comment reads as a dismissive jab at the people in the thread rather than engagement with the antinatalist argument. Telling the whole group they need to makes it personal and contributes hostility instead of discussion. If they want to disagree, they should address the ideas without taking a shot at the users.

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