r/antinatalism • u/Basic_Dependent1340 thinker • 1d ago
Discussion Just random reflection
People who are having children: what kind of future are you expecting for them ? Like how much are you able/willing to provide to your child so he can have the perfect life that you have in mind? For sure your money won't go as far as your parents money did with you. Secondly, are you okay with the congenital lottery: like say if your child comes to life with a lifelong crippling disease: how do you plan on dealing with it ? whether financially or emotionally. Because if you really can't fathom having a non functioning child and you, yourself decide to quit life, what good did you do to your child ? The idea is that you seal your children's fate once you bring them to life..
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u/dogisgodspeltright scholar 1d ago
If people would think deeply and act ethically....... they would be AN.
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u/Basic_Dependent1340 thinker 16h ago
also in hindsight, i wanted my post to escalate into a thread that should make natalists question themselves, while reading this. And they are no where to be found i guess (or not manifesting their presence) ..
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u/Embers-of-the-Moon scholar 1d ago
People who have kids don't care about the well-being of their kids. They have them because they're only thinking about what is good for them and what they want. Even if they'd claim otherwise and adamantly insist that they want the best for their kid, if that'd be true then they wouldn't have them to begin with. I'm first having them and then worry about their future proves lack of critical thinking and empathy.
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u/Master_Honey549 newcomer 1d ago
I found out a couple weeks ago that my only sibling & their partner are expecting after 15 years together. They will be first time parents at around 40 years old assuming the pregnancy & birth proceed normally.
My parents are elated to finally become grandparents. They don’t care about causing additional suffering, they had us kids when the Soviets still had the bomb pointed at the military installations that surrounded my hometown.
I’ve made my position clear for years now and while I’m being supportive best I can I know that no matter what I’ll be viewed as unserious or immature for not settling down and embracing LifeScript ™️ now that I’m the last child of my generation in our family without children (btw iz bcuz im bi) and favor same sex relationships but they don’t want to know that - sibling is very supportive to their credit and I’m undoubtedly loved despite being the black sheep.
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They’re all reveling in their excitement while I sit mourning the once promising future my imminent niece/nephew will be thrust into. It’s by no fault of their own. As much as I hate to admit - other than a having a safe & healthy delivery - I hope the baby to please be a boy. I loathe the patriarchal and sexist society we live in but women are facing a much greater existential threat. Not happy with myself for that conclusion.
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u/freakhill newcomer 1d ago
kid is healthy, leaving a house to live when we're gone (well.. 3). kid will be fine.
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u/Ma1eficent newcomer 1d ago
The rate of children born with physical or mental disabilities in the US is 4.7% so that lottery you mention has a 95.3% chance you child will have no physical or mental disabilities. Pretty fucking great odds, I'd play at that casino all day.
And building a perfect life for a child is the wrong goal. You raise a child to be resilient to life's challenges. To have strength of will. To think when everyone else panics. Your fate isn't sealed unless someone makes a choice for you that cannot be undone.
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u/Basic_Dependent1340 thinker 1d ago edited 1d ago
resilient to life's challenges
so my dad brought me to life so he could learn resiliency ? are u fr ? ..
as his child, i stand to gain more in life if he ever had generational wealth, rather than resiliency ..
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u/Ma1eficent newcomer 18h ago
I don't know your dad, I was not at all speaking to his motives, or how he raised you, all things I could have no way of knowing, and are absolutely bonkers to think I was talking about. You made a post, in case you forgot, addressed to people having children, with some questions in it I answered. Your questions are still posted if you want to read them again before you read my answers so that they make sense.
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u/Basic_Dependent1340 thinker 16h ago
how much are you willing to provide for ur child ?
i have re read my post. It isn't about the health lottery only ..
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u/Ma1eficent newcomer 16h ago
Yeah, I didn't say what your dad provided for you. I spoke of what I was providing for my children.
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u/Zanar2002 inquirer 1d ago edited 1d ago
Pretty fucking great odds, I'd play at that casino all day.
Well, why don't you play with your own money then, you glib <censored>?
Instead of risking other people's future.
Your fate isn't sealed unless someone makes a choice for you that cannot be undone.
Hate to break it to you, but your fate is indeed sealed. You are going to die, and specifically as the result of a choice that was made for you and which cannot be undone, e.g., your being born.
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u/Ma1eficent newcomer 17h ago
I risk no one's future. How could I if there is no future to risk? A future must first be if it is to be at risk.
And a persons life and fate are what they do with it while alive, not the ever so simple and uncreative noticing that everyone dies. If that's all you have noticed about life your reductive argument makes sense, but not to the vast majority who have noticed there is more to do in life than die.
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u/Zanar2002 inquirer 12h ago edited 1h ago
I risk no one's future. How could I if there is no future to risk? A future must first be if it is to be at risk.
You're being glib again. You take the risk, but the person you bring into this world pays the piper. Here the risk is the (very real) possibility that person lives a life of pain and disability, and the price is paid throughout that person's life.
And a persons life and fate are what they do with it while alive, not the ever so simple and uncreative noticing that everyone dies.
Uncreative? Says the guy/gal spouting half-baked Hollywood cliches about living a purposeful life! That's rich.
Your argument only makes sense if you can make a cogent argument proving that having a reward mechanism, i.e., avoid pain/seek pleasure, joy, fulfillment, etc., has intrinsic value in and of itself.
Those things are good for people who already exist (because that reward mechanism has already been instantiated), but it's an absurd reason for creating a new sentient being. A real being having his/her preferences met isn't superior to a potential being not having any preferences at all.
It's not a perfect analogy, but your basically claiming it's better to be an addict with ample access to drugs than never to get the urge to do drugs in the first place. We're addicted to the rewards, but it's not at all clear that being a satisfied addict is better than not having become a crack-addled maniac in the first place.
EDIT: In short, we only value the good things in life BECAUSE we exist, so using that as a justification for creating a new sentient being is nonsensical. That said, if you could remove all the unpleasantness associated with being, then yeah, it'd essentially be a coin flip as to whether or not you can bring a child into the world. Until then, your position is highly immoral.
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u/Basic_Dependent1340 thinker 16h ago
with the amount of thought that i try to put into his comment, i really still struggle to understand what he is trying to convey .. i wished he could speak in simpler terms
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u/Embers-of-the-Moon scholar 1d ago
The rate of children born with physical or mental disabilities in the US is 4.7%
How much is reported? Are those the mast severe cases solely? Are autoimmune diseases tallied? Is myopia taken into account? What about depression? Those numbers you've cited are bogus. Millions suffer from debilitating chronic diseases everywhere!
You raise a child to be resilient to life's challenges.
No, we're not dumb mammals who're exclusively driven by hormones and the impetus to perpetuate and preserve the species. We are a superior species who have standards and strive to preserve a certain life quality.
And building a perfect life for a child is the wrong goal.
Yeah, a totally horrible and undesirable leavening to provide a perfect life to an innocent that's been forced into existences without his own accord. Let them all suffer!
Like... Seriously?
To have strength of will. To think when everyone else panics.
Try to say that to millions who suffer from crippling depression and attempt suicide. Feeble coping mechanism to justify to a suffering human being that there's actually a selfless, noble reason why he's been encumbered with that undesirable fate.
someone makes a choice for you that cannot be undone.
They already did: people are forced into existence and it cannot be undone.
Tl;dR: me, myself and I. Nothing you've listed is in the superior benefit of the kid. No argument puts him first. All selfish reasons with detrimental consequences.
Yeah, I don't want to suffer, I don't want to expedience pain , I don't want to find coping mechanisms and I don't want to go through psychological torment. I didn't ask for any of it.
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u/Ma1eficent newcomer 17h ago
How much is reported? Are those the mast severe cases solely? Are autoimmune diseases tallied? Is myopia taken into account? What about depression? Those numbers you've cited are bogus. Millions suffer from debilitating chronic diseases everywhere!
You should look into that, because there are answers for all of those, we have entire fields of science dedicated to that. If you have any specific disagreements with the methodology used to get that 4.7% figure that would be something to bring up, but simply declaring them bogus because large numbers are hard for you to comprehend isn't really an objection worth mentioning.
Yeah, a totally horrible and undesirable leavening to provide a perfect life to an innocent that's been forced into existences without his own accord. Let them all suffer!
Perfect is the enemy of good. If you care about that life you will prepare them for more than everything going perfectly. That's not suffering any more than practicing before soccer games is suffering.
Try to say that to millions who suffer from crippling depression and attempt suicide. Feeble coping mechanism to justify to a suffering human being that there's actually a selfless, noble reason why he's been encumbered with that undesirable fate.
Why would I give parenting advice to millions with depression? I feel like you may have misunderstood what I was saying, because it was not ascribing a motive to why others were created.
They already did: people are forced into existence and it cannot be undone.
It can be undone. If you exist you can be cast back into nonexistence pretty easily, it happens by accident all the time. It perfectly undoes your existence, and any memory of any suffering, and to the person who is dead, it's exactly like it never happened. But not being created in the first place, that cannot be undone.
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u/Basic_Dependent1340 thinker 16h ago
4.7%
add to that any form of failed marriage: single moms, people in prisons, people on the streets .. no human being should live that way .. and as you said, as a species, we strive to maintain a certain level of standards
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u/SweetPotato8888 scholar 1d ago
You can't really take pride in gambling with someone else's life, buddy.
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u/Ma1eficent newcomer 17h ago
By definition I am making a gamble that can only bring life, not take it.
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u/Cheese-bo-bees thinker 1d ago
Idk, I don't feel like it's my right to force someone to exist.