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this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2025
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I believe antinatalism is a dire mistake, and the highest thing someone can aspire to be is a parent
I believe that its pointless to argue this way or that about antinatalism, as we no longer have control of a population encroaching 8 billion. It just becomes a moot point to bash each other on over the internet (which can be said about a multitude of other subjects).
I'm not going to have kids. That's just what I want. Going extreme on antinatalism or pronatalism is just circling back to telling other people what they should do with their bodies. Everything is just so extreme these days. Its do or die in the eyes of the public, no matter what you do, and its grating.
The debate shows… the next generation it’s OK to have strong feelings both ways?
(initially I was going to make a point that seemed on shaky ground given search engines exist - “not everyone has formed their opinion yet” so for those [young] people, just check out a couple opposing books from the local library and that’s sufficient? Ooooh, what about when they want to debate what they read! Ground feels less shaky!)
It really all boils down to "live how you want as long as you're not bothering others". If you believe heavily in it, then live by it, but stop slamming it into the heads of people who believe the opposite or just don't care.
It's part of the reason why younger gens cringe at religion. "Do this or you will go to hell, but do it through us because you'll go to hell if you do it through another religion." It's enough to make anyone balk, and rightfully so. The ground is always shaky, it just doesn't feel as shaky if you shake with it.
...Now I want a shake.
Why is it the highest thing someone can aspire to? You don't think being a Nobel-winning scientist is as important as being a parent?
Be a good parent.
Far too many out there are shit, or at best mediocre parents.
If you're going to say the church, the school, the neighbors, other family members, anyone else is who should raise your kids, you should aspire for a vasectomy.
If you aspire to just pump out kids for a number game, you missed the Dark Ages. Though a Mennonite community may be your thing.
Im not too judgemental of most anti-natalists but the ones who claim having kids is bad for the planet can fuck right off.
I hate this myth. The world can absolutely support a large human population IF we arent all living the same hideously wasteful lifestyle. We need to change our consumeristic shitstain of a culture. Blaming population growth is just a means to justify continuing to live wasteful lifestyles and not having to change anything.
Its literally just placing a higher value on consumerism than human lives. Its gross.
Antinatalism is a mistake - I think I agree there, mostly because it's a path to a narrow gene pool and increases the probability of extinction.
Highest aspiration being parenthood - hard pass there, the highest aspiration in life is the seeking and sharing of knowledge.
Donct ypu realize the end of the world is nigh, and also bad things happen that cause sadness, and therefore our species should stop procreating until nothing bad ever happens again?
To people's credit for intellectual honesty, you also hear "asteroid impact now plz".
Lol you should work for an online ad agency.
How many kids do you have?
Oooeh this is one is gonna piss off a lot of lemmings. This is one of those hard echo chamber topics that haunt Lemmy.
Also don't mention religion, that will also twist a lot of panties on here
On, that's easy to address. You don't need to have kids as long as you're improving society so that other people's kids thrive.
Now we're inclusive of the infertile and accomplish the same goal.
But I also agree, fucking is the best
Why?
Because I don't think there's a point to living without reproduction. Everything else is living a pointless life of minor hedonism and disappearing into oblivion at the end.
I don't think doing so is immoral, just pointless
Bringing a person into existence for your own entertainment is the ultimate form of pointless hedonism
There's no point in living at all. Reproduction doesn't change that.
So you believe that every person on the planet should be a parent? Is 7 billion people not enough for you?
No, we need more people. Developed countries are facing a demographic cliff that is very bad for us
I don't think more people is the answer. We're cancer on this planet.
So Nikola Tesla's life of scientific research was pointless?
Sure why not
Huh. So you enjoy being a mindless husk with the sole purpose of breeding the next generation.
I'm sorry you've been traumatized so much by life that you've given up on yourself as a person.
I don't know why you're so offended at someone having a different opinion than you
It's not the opinion so much as the perceived judgement. No one would bat an eye if your opinion was simply that you couldn't see your life having any meaning without kids. But you go on further to say that you don't see how the lives of people choosing not to have kids has any meaning. Consider one of those families with more than a dozen kids looking down on you for not having enough kids. Saying they don't understand how your life has any meaning when you could still be having babies.
Why would I care what a stranger thinks about me, and why do you?
If you didn't care what anyone thought, why did you post your opinion on the internet?
I'm calling the burn ward now
I'm not sure why you think I'm offended. But I feel you're still hurting and perceive this as an attack, so I apologize to you.
It's fine to give up. Take your time and try to heal. Even if you don't find value in your own life, raising your children is still very much meaningful as you say.
You called me a mindless husk and you don't think that's an attack? Get real, jabroni. My life is great, and that's WHY I want to have children. The only people I've seen who are anti-natalist usually justify it with "life sucks, why would I bring a child into this world?"
You say your life is great, yet call it pointless.
You also disparage Tesla's scientific pursuits and possibly those of every other scientist or person of intellect that dedicated themselves to the betterment of humanity and whose achievements made possible the current great life you seem to hedonistically enjoy.
Perhaps i misunderstood your words and you feel such a life is incomplete without the addition of children. If so, again, I apologize.
But from your previous posts all i understood is that you find nothing worth doing in life other than having children. And that screams outwards a complete lack of self worth that needs something to hang on to in order to find some kind of meaning in life.
I sincerely wish you a happy life with as many kids as you need.
You can enjoy pointless things. In fact it's quite easy to do so: most people do it all the time. Just because my life is comfortable doesn't mean it has a point yet. And just because I haven't found a point, that doesn't mean my life needs to be sad and depressing. It's easy to live a life of selfishness without caring about what comes after; it's basically the default way to live
There's opinion, and there is just pure stupidity.
I get this is an opinion thread, but you dumb.
Its a dumb opinion, but not invalid.
So the meaning of life is ... the continuation of life? Or to put it another way, life is the meaning of life. That seems rather tautological.
There's a difference between a point and a meaning
This doesn't help your argument.
I don't think life is 'less pointless' if you procreate. It's both very pointless, except for personal fulfilment. What should it matter if you follow a path that evolution laid out before you. With consciousness, there is no more reason to consider that path in my eyes, just do what feels right.
There's all sorts of types of reproduction.
Take the reproduction of knowledge, for example. Say you have a person who never had kids, but dedicated their life's work to something like Project Gutenberg. They've ensured art and writing and understanding is reproduced for generations to come. Is that pointless?
imo u don't necessarily have to be a parent, you can be a parental figure to a younger person, be a good role model and teach them well
Sure I don't see why adoption ot being a godfather to someone shouldn't count. I just think that anyone not engaged in raising children or making the world a better place for them is just using the world and giving nothing back
Just having a child is not enough, parents also need to be helping to make the world a better place.
Well obviously if you're fully antinatalist you're basically working towards human extinction.
But I think that a healthy society includes a few child-free people. In fact, as someone without kids, I'd happily pay a much higher tax rate so that parents can stay home with their kids. I doubt I'd be a good parent anyways, and so I'd prefer to contribute to society in ways people with families can't.
Regardless of one's views on antinatalism, we absolutely need to acknowledge that not everyone is suitable for parenthood. I'm not suggesting that we (as a society) impose restrictions on it. Rather if someone self-selects for not having kids, people need to STFU and accept it rather than trying to shame or pressure them.
Thank you. I did not have kids for a number of reasons, and I can assure you the world would not be a better place if I had. But I do always enjoy people telling me my life is pointless, haha
I agreed with this up until the 'and'.