Since you asked for general opinions, I recently made a comment on Tildes about how raising a child takes a village. I pointed out that we don't really have villages anymore. Perhaps digital...
Exemplary
Since you asked for general opinions, I recently made a comment on Tildes about how raising a child takes a village. I pointed out that we don't really have villages anymore. Perhaps digital villages, but that means nothing when you're on day 6 of no sleep and your little one still has needs. Wife and I have one kid right now and plan on adding one more. But without any friends, family, or neighbors to help out, it's been pretty brutal at times.
Our one friend has a big family with plenty of kids and they all share the load. Wife and I (perhaps unfairly) get annoyed at the friend when she vents about how hard it is to raise a kid. She drops him off somewhere for free multiple days/nights per week and knows he's getting a ton of love and healthy interaction. Then she has other kids from the family over to hang out and he's getting attention from them. I wish we had that so bad sometimes. When my mother came from out of state for ONE DAY to help out, it was a huge relief.
Anyway, since that comment I have been thinking more about it. And I realized another factor is that lot of people probably just don't want to have kids. I have to guess a lot of people were having kids for social and religious reasons back in the day. It was just what you did, so people did it. Those pressures are gone. But there's also more to do these days and I think people feel that they have permission to go do it.
If you enjoy kayaking, you're free to go kayak every moment you're not working. Strap on a go-pro and you might even make some money off it. Nobody will judge you negatively, nobody thinks it's weird, travel is cheaper and easier than ever before, and the Internet has a database of everywhere you can kayak. Enjoy playing video games? Same deal.
There is so much more that you can do with your life now, and a lot of people are doing it.
I personally don't think there are a ton of people out there choosing to remain childless for philosophical or environmental reasons. If there were, we would also see massive changes in people's other consumption habits like driving and using plastic. Some people do make the changes, most do not.
You can always count on people, including me, to be fairly selfish in how they live their lives. If they want kids and it feels viable, they'll do it regardless of any deeper held beliefs about man's place in the world.
I got into this debate here awhile back. While my reasons for not having children are many and varied, environmental is one of them, even if it's not at the top of the list. However, I do find...
I personally don't think there are a ton of people out there choosing to remain childless for philosophical or environmental reasons. If there were, we would also see massive changes in people's other consumption habits like driving and using plastic.
I got into this debate here awhile back. While my reasons for not having children are many and varied, environmental is one of them, even if it's not at the top of the list. However, I do find this notion that someone that elects to be childfree should also have "massive changes in consumption habits" to go with it, to be odd. The mere act of not having children makes an individual environmentally leaps and bounds ahead of even the most eco-friendly person that elects to breed. Not having/using a car at all saves 2.4 tons CO2e/yr, having a child contributes 58.6 tons CO2e/yr. A childfree person can take thirty-six 6+ hour flights per year before they hit the breakeven point of emissions of someone that had a child.
Not to say that everyone shouldn't be trying to reduce their environmental impact, but simply not having a child is the single most eco-friendly thing anyone can do and it seems odd to require someone's environmental reasons to being childfree to also include "massive changes" in their other habits.
I'm calling this out. Here's the probable method for determining that. So realistically, it's not 58.6 tons per year, because they're counting the burden of every theoretical future decendent....
Exemplary
having a child contributes 58.6 tons CO2e/yr.
I'm calling this out. Here's the probable method for determining that.
totting up the emissions of the child and all their descendants, then dividing this total by the parent’s lifespan. Each parent was ascribed 50% of the child’s emissions, 25% of their grandchildren’s emissions and so on.
So realistically, it's not 58.6 tons per year, because they're counting the burden of every theoretical future decendent. Which, I guess is OK if you're virtue-signalling or that you want the end of the human race, but is not really a 'fair' metric for 'doing your part' if you also concede that it would be best if it's more of a gradual decline and you don't want humanity to cease to exist....if that's your stance then climate change is kinda-sorta irrelevant because life without humans will continue with or without it. Especially, and this is important: It's more important to measure carbon footprint inside of 10 years than it is inside of 50. Sure, my kids may someday have kids, and they might have kids, and they'll all have carbon footprints...but most of this is all moot navel-gazing unless improvements happen now.
A more-reasonable metric would be "children are counted against society until children are self-sufficient." The childfree should bear some of that burden, given that I presume they'd still like to continue living in a functioning society and not picking berries and hunting each other for sport.
A child's burden in the USA, presuming for 20 years, is 320 tons. Which comes out to approximately 3.9ton/yr for replacement childbirth. Some math/reasoning explained in detail.
Assuming a child uses a full 16t/yr (they don't), and we count for 20 years before assuming their own burden. The parents should bear the majority of that burden. But since childfree people probably also wish to retire, say from 65 to 85, they should also assume some of that 'societal burden'
Right now numbers are showing about 1/6 adults over 55 are child-free, and that number is trending upward towards 1/5 (which matches what I see ancedotally around 40). We'll roll with 1/5 because the math is easier.
I think it's easiest to see this 'generationally' with a smaller group
100 adults, 80 are parents, 20 are child-free.
Assuming 80 parents have 80 kids that survive to old age, which kind of matches current birth rates. Some have more, some only 1, and some kids die.
320 tons of carbon per kid (16*20). 80 kids = 25,600 tons of carbon for their '20 years of rearing'. 100 adults, that's 25.6 tons per person. That's the 'lifetime carbon cost of living in a society that is not growing.'
Amortize that out over 65 years (because your own childhood isn't counted against you), 3.9 ton/yr.
Now, that 3.9 ton is for essentially pairs. If everybody stuck to 2 kids, population will trend downward reasonably courtesy of dead children.
I would say that it'd be fair to say you get penalized if you have more than replacement numbers of children. But even now, the large families are balanced by people only having 1 child per couple (already a 50% population reduction if everyone adhered), so I'd figure it's fair to impose a big-family-disincentive of roughly 0.3 ton/yr per additional child to each parent (it comes to about 4.2 ton if you don't factor the childfree). Which (somewhat surprisingly) puts in line with other things like 'hybrid instead of ICE'.
Sorry if the wording got convoluted there. So to recap, I'll try to be concise: Carbon footprint for children really shouldn't be counted unless it's above the replacement rate for society, because a slow drop in population is a much more desireable outcome to prevent total societal collapse. This comes out to be roughly in line with other 'carbon saving' measures.
It's a fair metric to put the weight of an individual's choices on them. Having children is a choice, the emissions those children cause is the price the person making the choice to breed must...
So realistically, it's not 58.6 tons per year, because they're counting the burden of every theoretical future decendent. Which, I guess is OK if you're virtue-signalling or that you want the end of the human race, but is not really a 'fair' metric for 'doing your part' if you also concede that it would be best if it's more of a gradual decline and you don't want humanity to cease to exist....if that's your stance then climate change is kinda-sorta irrelevant because life without humans will continue with or without it. Especially, and this is important: It's more important to measure carbon footprint inside of 10 years than it is inside of 50. Sure, my kids may someday have kids, and they might have kids, and they'll all have carbon footprints...but most of this is all moot navel-gazing unless improvements happen now.
It's a fair metric to put the weight of an individual's choices on them. Having children is a choice, the emissions those children cause is the price the person making the choice to breed must bear. The carbon cost of my lunch isn't shared across everyone in the building. It's not pooled risk, it's not insurance, it's a choice. A person should be responsible for their own actions. The child didn't ask to be born, the parents made the conscious decision to increase emissions by having the child.
A gradual decline in population guarantees humanity/society will also cease to exist as it won't be fast enough to actually reduce emissions enough to ensure that it can continue. Having children doesn't benefit society, it benefits the economy, the two are not the same thing.
A more-reasonable metric would be "children are counted against society until children are self-sufficient." The childfree should bear some of that burden, given that I presume they'd still like to continue living in a functioning society and not picking berries and hunting each other for sport.
Or since they're a choice, they're counted against the parents at least until they are self-sufficient. We've had this back and forth before. You think your kids are required for society/retirement, going so far as to say if your children are counted against your carbon budget, then you'll teach them not to help the childfree and I stated that's fine so long as all the taxes the childfree pay to house, clothe, educate, and feed children are kept by the childfree instead.
Is a newborn themselves putting out 16t/y? No, but until we have an actual, individual level measurement everyone gets the same count, so each parent gets half of the 16t their kid gets counted for or we recalculate to only count adults in the national average. And one's decision to breed is not the burden that others must bear just because someone doesn't like how it makes their own carbon emissions look.
Not having a child, at the very least, keep's one's emissions at a baseline when all should be reduced. Having a child will actively increase emissions be they attributed to the parents or not. In a world where everyone needs to be reducing emissions, having a child is the single worst thing the average person can do.
Carbon legacy matters. Having a child right now at best negatively impacts the environment to a measurable degree and quite possibly is ultimately a net negative for the world and society itself.
Following this train of thought, I don't have any responsibility for my actions, and my carbon footprint just counts against my parent's footprint. Theirs counts against their parents, and they...
A person should be responsible for their own actions. The child didn't ask to be born, the parents made the conscious decision to increase emissions by having the child.
Following this train of thought, I don't have any responsibility for my actions, and my carbon footprint just counts against my parent's footprint. Theirs counts against their parents, and they don't care because they're long dead.
This is an excellent way to make people just stop caring at all.
You also don't apparently count for half your footprint to each parent, but your full footprint to each parent. Which is why I think reducing people to numbers may work in the aggregate but isn't...
You also don't apparently count for half your footprint to each parent, but your full footprint to each parent.
Which is why I think reducing people to numbers may work in the aggregate but isn't a useful way to make individual decisions.
You end up being Chidi on The Good Place - miserable and making everyone else around you the same while you calculate the difference in an ethical choice the way I try to figure out the best deal on soda at the store.
Meta comment: Are people labeling this as noise or why is it ranked below other answers? If people are indeed labeling this as noise, why? IMO anyone trying to use the labeling system to 'demote'...
Meta comment: Are people labeling this as noise or why is it ranked below other answers?
If people are indeed labeling this as noise, why? IMO anyone trying to use the labeling system to 'demote' replies they don't like deserves to have their labeling privileges revoked.
This is one of the top sub-responses to me? Other responses are auto collapsed. It takes multiple people for a Noise label to impact visibility. It feels a bit out there to hypothesize that people...
This is one of the top sub-responses to me? Other responses are auto collapsed. It takes multiple people for a Noise label to impact visibility.
It feels a bit out there to hypothesize that people are labeling something a particular way, assume why they're doing it, and then tsk tsk at them for it. (I'd likely label this whole thread off topic)
It appears that way for me as well now. Perhaps, but I've seen this several times since the influx and had never seen it previously. I think it's somewhat likely it's occurring and if it is it I...
This is one of the top sub-responses to me? Other responses are auto collapsed. It takes multiple people for a Noise label to impact visibility.
It appears that way for me as well now.
It feels a bit out there to hypothesize that people are labeling something a particular way, assume why they're doing it, and then tsk tsk at them for it. (I'd likely label this whole thread off topic)
Perhaps, but I've seen this several times since the influx and had never seen it previously. I think it's somewhat likely it's occurring and if it is it I would say it deserves a tsk tsk.
You're completely right. I suppose my point was that most people are probably not consciously choosing to avoid having children for environmental reasons. If they were, I think we would see a lot...
You're completely right. I suppose my point was that most people are probably not consciously choosing to avoid having children for environmental reasons. If they were, I think we would see a lot of other changes in behavior on a global scale to match that of the declining birthrates.
I am with you 100%. Maybe more, because I decided as a teen back in the 80's that the world had too many people, and there was nothing superior about my genes to support the damage done to the...
I am with you 100%. Maybe more, because I decided as a teen back in the 80's that the world had too many people, and there was nothing superior about my genes to support the damage done to the world by adding to the population. I figured if I ever felt desperate for children, it would make far more sense to adopt. (Which I never did.) The personal and financial benefits of not having children were afterthoughts, but definitely real. I do think about the environment and I do in fact try to make an impact in other ways--in my case by eating vegetarian and growing organically and supporting native ecosystems on my property. But there are many ways to try to make an impact, and even if all childless people who thought the environmental impact was a primary factor also were attempting to make other positive environmental impacts, those could be widely dispersed and hard to track.
Our first was born a few months after Covid started, so nothing was known and with a newborn you were 100 times more anxious and tried to keep everything safe. And while a ton of my relatives live...
Since you asked for general opinions, I recently made a comment on Tildes about how raising a child takes a village.
Our first was born a few months after Covid started, so nothing was known and with a newborn you were 100 times more anxious and tried to keep everything safe. And while a ton of my relatives live close by, we couldn't have them help us due to that (and laws preventing it).
Our next one is due in a few months and you cannot believe how much I'm looking forward to not spend my parental leave indoors being scared. And always being able to call someone to help out. And to go wherever, whenever. And to my wife not having to be alone in the hospital during birth. It's going to be awesome.
Sorry for the semi-offtopic, but I felt like I needed to share this :)
Our only child's 5th birthday was canceled as the COVID lockdown started in March. Being an only was so hard those first months, we were doing everything we could think of to get her some safe...
Our only child's 5th birthday was canceled as the COVID lockdown started in March. Being an only was so hard those first months, we were doing everything we could think of to get her some safe human contact. I can't even imagine having to combine all the new parent worry with COVID worry and isolation. Glad you all made it through.
I remember a few years later, we were at the zoo. At the lion enclosure, there was a family with an older child and an ~2 year old. The younger one just sat and stared for so long, eventually the older one started complaining. She said, "Sweetie, give him some time. This is the first time he's ever seen a real lion." That really brought home to me how different those two years must have been for them.
My primary reason for not wanting to reproduce is that I find pregnancy horrifying. I'm apalled that we've done so little in terms of medical research to make it any less horrifying. I do think...
My primary reason for not wanting to reproduce is that I find pregnancy horrifying. I'm apalled that we've done so little in terms of medical research to make it any less horrifying. I do think even if it was a walk in the park, I'd avoid it for environmental reasons, but you are right. The main reason I've never given birth is that I live in a time when I can choose not to give birth.
I'm so glad we live in a time when we can choose not to give birth. If we lived in other times, I likely would have been fully disabled or dead from bring pregnant and having to give birth. I'm...
I'm so glad we live in a time when we can choose not to give birth. If we lived in other times, I likely would have been fully disabled or dead from bring pregnant and having to give birth.
I'm hoping with my new doctors, I'll be able to get a full hysterectomy now that I'm in my mid-30's. The gyn I had for years flat refused to approve a hysterectomy, even given my issues. I fired her and never got the chance to bring it up with my last gyn before my insurance changed.
In case you hit any more roadblocks (or if anyone else in here is looking) r/childfree keeps an updated list of (US) doctors (sorted by state) who will do hysterectomies on "younger" people (like,...
In case you hit any more roadblocks (or if anyone else in here is looking) r/childfree keeps an updated list of (US) doctors (sorted by state) who will do hysterectomies on "younger" people (like, late 20s/early 30s, when it's reasonable to assume you have a pretty good idea what you're about). I chose one in my area somewhat at random and she was wonderful. No judgement, no "are you suurrreeee," kind and honest q&a beforehand, healing was a breeze, quick and complication-free. Best thing I've ever done for myself, no question. I hope you get yours soon!
Thank you! I'm working through my medical issues right now with my new insurance and this is one of those things that I don't know will happen right away. Unfortunately, I'm fairly overweight...
Thank you! I'm working through my medical issues right now with my new insurance and this is one of those things that I don't know will happen right away. Unfortunately, I'm fairly overweight thanks to medications and chronic illness, so I was told I need to fix that first before other medically necessary procedures will be considered :/
I am in more or less the same situation. I will warn you, it is about 1.8x harder than with only one. It's a little easier because you know the mechanics of parenting now, but your attention is...
But without any friends, family, or neighbors to help out, it's been pretty brutal at times.
I am in more or less the same situation. I will warn you, it is about 1.8x harder than with only one. It's a little easier because you know the mechanics of parenting now, but your attention is now fully divided, and you and your partner won't as easily be able to 'take turns' to get a parenting break.
I don't think you're being too judgy about people with support networks complaining about it being hard. I view it kind of like dog owners comparing caring for a dog like parenting. They just have no fucking clue how hard it really is. "Oh your mom ia providing free childcare for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week? If I hand my baby to my mother, it gets shook."
It's starting to get better now that we're embedding in the comminity, but it still feels a weird ask to be like 'Wanna swap babysitting duty 2x a week so that we can live without our kids for 3 hours without paying $120? We'd like to see Dune P2."
Hilarious because my wife and I are (in effect) paying someone $140 to watch our son next Friday so we can see Dune part 2. To be more specific, our daycare is unavailable next week but we still...
Hilarious because my wife and I are (in effect) paying someone $140 to watch our son next Friday so we can see Dune part 2.
To be more specific, our daycare is unavailable next week but we still have to pay her the $140/week minimum. She is available to take our son Friday so we are sneaking off to see Dune for both of our birthday presents to each other. So yeah, in effect I'm paying $140 for a single day of daycare to see the exact movie you mentioned lol.
We also just paid around that much (w/ movie tickets) to go see Dune p2 last week. I never thought I'd be thrilled to spend over $100 to go see a movie but it was actually great. :)
We also just paid around that much (w/ movie tickets) to go see Dune p2 last week. I never thought I'd be thrilled to spend over $100 to go see a movie but it was actually great. :)
Depending on how far "back in the day" we're talking... Children were your pension fund. Also, birth control wasn't nearly as effective or widely available.
And I realized another factor is that lot of people probably just don't want to have kids. I have to guess a lot of people were having kids for social and religious reasons back in the day. It was just what you did, so people did it.
Depending on how far "back in the day" we're talking... Children were your pension fund. Also, birth control wasn't nearly as effective or widely available.
Children are still kind of a pension fund, aren't they? Both immediately (ideally, I die surrounded by descendants that care for me in my dotage) and societally (who's paying the pensions in Japan...
Children are still kind of a pension fund, aren't they? Both immediately (ideally, I die surrounded by descendants that care for me in my dotage) and societally (who's paying the pensions in Japan if trends continue as they are?).
Not in the same sense as in the past, when a lot of people had no savings and there was no legal obligation for the state to take care of you. You might not die, as the local community might take...
Not in the same sense as in the past, when a lot of people had no savings and there was no legal obligation for the state to take care of you. You might not die, as the local community might take pity on you (I've heard stories from relatively modern times of how the families in a village would take turns caring for a disabled or elderly person with no living relatives, a few weeks or couple of months at each home), or maybe a religious charity might take you in or something, but relying on charity is a Plan C at best. The economic incentive isn't nearly as strong today.
My general point being that I don't think people of the past had children just because it's "just what you did". There were some very pragmatic reasons why. Today, between state programs and private pensions, most people (in developed countries at least) don't have the economic imperative of knowing that they either become essentially a beggar, a charity case, or they literally just die when they're no longer able to work enough to support themselves.
I'm reminded of a blog post I read from a medieval historian. I wasn't able to find it right now but I think it came from this blog. Essentially it was about whether medieval peasants saved the excess from good harvests as a rainy day fund for bad years. And the answer was generally, no. Food itself was too perishable - a good harvest now won't save you from a famine in five years. And you could sell food and save money, but if your area is hit by a famine, there might not be anyone willing and able to sell you food. And you can't eat gold or silver. So instead, what they did was invest in social capital. They might blow the excess food from a good harvest on a seemingly wasteful feast for their friends and neighbors. But sharing the good times ensured that in the bad times, they had goodwill, which was more valuable than money in a lot of circumstances.
Children are social capital. Children are goodwill. But in modern times, between "unearned" rights guaranteed by the state (which is not to say undeserved, merely that they are rights granted by default, not as a result of your personal actions) and cold hard cash, the necessity of goodwill has been reduced. It's still nice to have a loving family, but the reasons are more emotional than economic now.
I do think there are an increasing number of people who factor environmental concerns into their choice not to have kids these days, even if it's not their primary reason. I also think you're...
I do think there are an increasing number of people who factor environmental concerns into their choice not to have kids these days, even if it's not their primary reason. I also think you're right though that a much more significant part is that the stigma of not having children is increasingly getting cast aside, which is great to see. Thanks for weighing in and I hope the childcare situation gets easier!
I've read my fair shair of philosophical pessimists, so I'm not a stranger to the idea of anti-natalism. It predates the concerns regarding climate change, and there are some criticisms I think...
Exemplary
I've read my fair shair of philosophical pessimists, so I'm not a stranger to the idea of anti-natalism. It predates the concerns regarding climate change, and there are some criticisms I think that apply to all anti-natalist movements.
First and foremost, it has no possibility of working. Human species have very strong instincts regarding living and the continuance of future generations that anti-natalist movements will never succeed. Anti-natalists are a very minor exception to this.
Second, anti-natalist philosophy is inherently depressing. The value of human life, of your own and at the very least of some other humans, is a vital part of human psyche, and I don't think a philosophy that seeks its destruction can bring happiness. This is why I think all the anti-natalists I've met and seen were depressed, and why this particular philosophy interested me the most when I was more susceptible to depressive modes of thinking. I recognize that there might be exceptions to this, but I haven't seen it. And from what I see, r/antinatalism is a very good example of how intertwined this philosophy is with depressive modes of thinking. I think it feeds on depressive modes of thinking, and it reinforces them.
For these reasons, I think all this movement does is ultimately be a failure while reinforcing the depressive modes of thinking in some sensitive people, resulting in making the world more unhappy while not accomplishing anything.
There are some other objections I have as well.
This is genocide on the species level. It's the final solution to an entire species. I don't see how this can be reconciled with an empathetic approach. I think, when anti-natalism is taken to its logical conclusions, its proponents should rejoice for every murder and genocide, because they lessen the impact of humanity on the planet.
As u/RNG pointed out, this movement is built on the assumption that climate crisis and other ecological crises aren't fixable. That a better life isn't possible. This is fatalistic, and it undermines these cases, because it assumes they will fail. Hence the final solution. Therefore, they work to reinforce reactionary forces.
On another, more philosophical point, I have certain opinions about nature that probably run counter to that of most people. Nature is extremely cruel, it commits countless massacres in a single area in a single day. This has been ongoing for billions of years, and for animals for hundreds of millions of years. The insect taxon alone commits more cruelties in a year than humans have ever committed. Darwin once wrote the following about this topic.
"With respect to the theological view of the question; this is always painful to me.— I am bewildered.— I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see, as plainly as others do, & as I should wish to do, evidence of design & beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice."
From this point of view, I don't see why we should get to be special as to be the only species that should be wiped out. Nature is already extremely cruel. If the intent is to destroy suffering, why not wipe out all species? If there is no life, there is no suffering. I think anti-natalist philosophies have a deficiency in confronting this.
One can counter-argue that it's not ultimately about some results-focused approach, but that it's about responsibility about our own impact on life around us. I have two counters to this.
First, again, why should we be so special to be the only species that is responsible? If we are operating from a non-human-centric point of view, we shouldn't treat ourselves too differently. We have some thinking capabilities, yes, but we are still beholden to the same desires and rights the other animals have. The same right to life.
Second, if it's about our own impact, why endorse an ultimately futile movement of which only outcome is making some people more unhappy? If it's about personal responsibility as a species, isn't it better to reform the civilization to be in better harmony with the world, rather than insisting on some movement that will never come to pass? After all, this will decrease the impacts more.
Furthermore, on the philosophical side, if it comes down to it, I will choose human life. While I do value other life forms, and I do not think there is a hard reason we can't live in a sustainable world, I do not share the view that we are an intrusion on nature. Nature is already chaotic, ugly, full of misery, and so scarce of resources and full of competition. There have been multiple global extinction events due to nature, and countless local extinctions. Over 99% of species that ever lived are extinct. The romanticized version of balance does not exist. As a result, I think every species has a right to destruction, to some extent, because that is life. This is an ugly truth I'm comfortable living with.
Finally, there are some very complex questions about this issue. Who decides that biodiversity is good? After all, while humanity destroys and hurts a lot of species, some others thrive. For example, humans pollute freshwaters and kill some species, while some algal species thrive in these conditions (e.g. algal blooms). In another example, while some native species are hurt by human activities, some other invasives thrive. Ultimately, when are gone, and we will be gone one day, these niches will be filled, one way or another. Some millions of years isn't really a problem on the evolutionary scale. We will never destroy all life on Earth. So, why be concerned about some long-term (in the evolutionary sense) "balance"?
From this point of view, in that time-frame, what we do won't matter. But what we do here and now does matter. While life will definitely find a way in the long run, it doesn't change the fact that there are very much preventable damages we are doing to other species. A lot of existing suffering we can alleviate. Anti-natalistic ideologies and movements don't help with this, because they will never succeed, and they undermine the rhetoric of movements that actually seek to transform societies to be more egalitarian.
If anything, antinatalism seems complementary to any egalitarian movement. As a form of protest, it seems pretty effective to say that you refuse to generate more "human resources" - to not create...
If anything, antinatalism seems complementary to any egalitarian movement. As a form of protest, it seems pretty effective to say that you refuse to generate more "human resources" - to not create any more exploitable labor, future consumers. The best labor conditions have always been when human labor was valuable and scarce, like post black-plague. Just consider it a balancing force, proof that humans won't get used to anything. Quite an optimistic way of looking at things.
Also philosophically, it has been mostly assumed that humans have a unique capacity for suffering as a result of their intelligence. Maybe it's intuition, but intelligence and biology seems to determine a capacity for suffering- and a human can mourn more than a fly. I see the contradiction, but I think it can easily be mentally sidestepped in multiple ways. Perhaps people simply don't want to be responsible for suffering on a personal level.
I understand and agree with what you said but should clarify regardless, anti-natalism rejects childbearing regardless of the socioeconomic status and future prospects of the world. And yes I...
I understand and agree with what you said but should clarify regardless, anti-natalism rejects childbearing regardless of the socioeconomic status and future prospects of the world.
And yes I would be very mentally disturbed if I had voluntarily taken part in conception of a human being. I think I would be a better parent than the average , bar is really low nowadays , but nothing is perfect and there were literally no reason for that child to come into existence.
Not true. The current labor conditions are better than the times of post-black death. This is not a law, but a contributing factor to a multifactorial problem.
The best labor conditions have always been when human labor was valuable and scarce, like post black-plague.
Not true. The current labor conditions are better than the times of post-black death. This is not a law, but a contributing factor to a multifactorial problem.
VHEMT is not anti-natalism, they do have overlapping areas but should not be examined in the same sentence. There is no anti-natalism movement either ( There was a group doing some advertising...
VHEMT is not anti-natalism, they do have overlapping areas but should not be examined in the same sentence.
There is no anti-natalism movement either ( There was a group doing some advertising years ago but insignificant ), it is a self-contained philosophy. Meaning you can not enforce it beyond personal level.
I agree that very nature of this kind of thinking process is extremely depressing but you really don't have to dismantle the value of human life or anything like that.
The only basic logic you need to run on is that all sentient lives ,some people include animals as well, are capable of suffering without an ability to consent to becoming into existence in the first place. So a conscious person may decide against childbearing of their own.
This does not mean life itself shall not be cherished, it is actually quite the opposite. Since you only have one life, you should live it to your content as much as possible ( Some anti-natalists go straight into machiavellianist thoughts from here ).
As for r/antinatalism , I don't want to sound like a gatekeeper but that sub started to flood with depressed doomers and environment obsessed people ( like VHEMT here ) after it gone above 30K members, I stopped browsing after that. I also come across some eugenics rhetorics as well which is absolutely unacceptable. ( Stuff like only trying to apply anti-natalism if those parents are disabled etc.)
The main reason I firmly reject this people is because they may not agree with the core principle of the philosophy so they may just go ahead into procrastination if their economic/social life improves which are completely irrelevant to anti-natalism.
Quoting from their page. "As VHEMT Volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo...
VHEMT is not anti-natalism, they do have overlapping areas but should not be examined in the same sentence.
Quoting from their page.
"As VHEMT Volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens... us.
[...]
It’s going to take all of us going."
This is very much a strain of anti-natalism.
There is no anti-natalism movement either ( There was a group doing some advertising years ago but insignificant ), it is a self-contained philosophy. Meaning you can not enforce it beyond personal level.
VHEMT is one, and there have been strains of anti-natalistic thought for some time now. David Benatar fans and such are some examples. It's not a very organized movement, but it still exists. I'm using the word movement not in the narrow sense of competing for elections and such, but in the broader sense, such as 19th century German pessimists also being a movement of philosophy. In this manner, anti-natalism is a philosophical movement regarding the ethics of life.
The rest of your message is interesting, but replying in a thorough manner would take too much time and effort for me. So I will have to not engage. But I do want to say that I think anti-natalist philosophers have a much better grasp on their philosophy than the members of r/antinatalism. I've actually read quite a fair amount of anti-natalist philosophy, and the impression I got from them was very different from that subreddit. But the depressive modes of thinking stayed similar in both, and I think for that reason that subreddit is a good example of what anti-natalist philosophy looks like in mass action. The intellectualized layers get peeled off, and what remains is the depressive modes of thinking in their bare form.
Thank you, I enjoyed this breakdown. The parts that stick out to me the most are some very common, reflexive misunderstandings. The idea that because anti-natalists/ VHEMT volunteers want less...
Exemplary
Thank you, I enjoyed this breakdown. The parts that stick out to me the most are some very common, reflexive misunderstandings.
Second, anti-natalist philosophy is inherently depressing. The value of human life, of your own and at the very least of some other humans, is a vital part of human psyche, and I don't think a philosophy that seeks its destruction can bring happiness.
The idea that because anti-natalists/ VHEMT volunteers want less human life, they don't value it. Why are we attributing the value of something to the quantity? Every day people die preventable deaths through disease, abuse and apathy because our social support is insufficient. Profit is routinely prioritised over people's wellbeing. Does it seem as though life is particularly valued on a larger scale to you today? Human population has exploded over the last century (don't worry, I'm not buying into the overpopulation crisis thing - not in the expected sense anyway). We haven't scaled our resources to accommodate it. We've rocketed up and we need to parachute down. I think with fewer people we will have the resource to care for and value human life more.
This is genocide on the species level. It's the final solution to an entire species. I don't see how this can be reconciled with an empathetic approach... I think, when anti-natalism is taken to its logical conclusions, its proponents should rejoice for every murder and genocide, because they lessen the impact of humanity on the planet.
Why do you think that's the logical conclusion? Genocides are not typically voluntary. If we accept the above proposal that actually, anti-natalists or at least VHEMT volunteers generally do value human life, logically they wouldn't be celebrating murders and genocides. Then reconciliation becomes very easy. As it happens, the minority in VHEMT that do try to share this opinion aren't accepted. It goes against the motto ("may we live long and die out") and the overall idea that we should "have some fun as we work and play toward a better world."
A couple of other points that I found particularly interesting:
First and foremost, it has no possibility of working. Human species have very strong instincts regarding living and the continuance of future generations that anti-natalist movements will never succeed. Anti-natalists are a very minor exception to this.
Most people that believe in VHEMT are well aware of this. I've already said it in a different comment but here's a quote from the website: "VHEMT Volunteers are realistic. We know we’ll never see the day there are no human beings on the planet. Ours is a long-range goal." Pinning it all on human instinct is a bit of a stretch though. It's also human instinct to kill a spider when we see it scuttling across the floor. Armed with knowledge that spiders are helpful to our broader environment, many of us manage to resist our primal instincts and catch and release the spider. I can more readily accept that human instinct is to have sex, rather than continue the species, but it's not unheard of for people to choose celibacy either. Suicide rates are climbing (which is not a cause for celebration and is a genuine crisis), in spite of the strong instinct to live. We reject instinctive behaviours in contemporary society all the time.
Finally, there are some very complex questions about this issue. Who decides that biodiversity is good?
This is an especially interesting one. I guess the main issue is that if you don't have biodiversity, you have a monoculture. I can't think of anything off the top of my head that can sustainably exist as a monoculture. Biodiversity is necessary for the continuation of life more generally, so I guess that opens up another complex question of who decides that the continuation of life is good? Whether it's good or bad, I don't think the cessation of all life is something that any of us particularly want.
Thank you for the kind response. I first want to make it clear that I don't think you are a proponent of fascism. I think everyone, including myself, suffer from certain blindspots in our...
Thank you for the kind response.
I first want to make it clear that I don't think you are a proponent of fascism. I think everyone, including myself, suffer from certain blindspots in our reasoning that lead us to defend some ideas that conflict with our deeper values. This is my biggest fundamental criticism of anti-natalist philosophies. You say less human life, yet the page you linked has the following to say.
As VHEMT Volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens... us.
[...]
It’s going to take all of us going.
This is not simply fewer humans. It's the genocide of the whole human species. It's anti-natalism.
So, that's the part I think that conflicts with the more egalitarian part. If it comes from caring about other humans, then why advocate for genocide/extinction of the species? If it doesn't come from a place of caring for other humans, then why not advocate for violence?
I'm saying this, by the way, as a person who's not planning to have children. So I'm not taking personal offense in that part. And I'm also aware that for people in developed countries, the best thing they could do right now to reduce their carbon footprint is to have fewer children. But making sacrifices for the collective future is different than proposing the destruction of its entire future.
We haven't scaled our resources to accommodate it. We've rocketed up and we need to parachute down.
Thanks for the thoughtful response and I'm very relieved that the non-facist feeling is coming across to you, haha. I fully understand why you take objection to this bit. Somewhere else on the...
Thanks for the thoughtful response and I'm very relieved that the non-facist feeling is coming across to you, haha.
As VHEMT Volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens... us.
[...]
It’s going to take all of us going.
I fully understand why you take objection to this bit. Somewhere else on the website it's clarified that this is because it would be the only way to ensure that the problems humans are causing today are not repeated (at least, not by us). As much as they emphasise elsewhere that they're realistic and they don't really expect this to happen, it's also probably one bit of reasoning I disagree with on a personal level.
As much as we do seem to be repeating a lot of past mistakes and regressing in some areas politically at the moment, I think humans have shown they have the capacity to learn. I'm optimistic enough, perhaps foolishly so, to believe that we can collectively realise that 8 billion of us was not the best idea and build a society where we all have the freedom to choose to procreate responsibly. As someone else mentioned, our ability to co-operate is a huge advantage.
So, that's the part I think that conflicts with the more egalitarian part. If it comes from caring about other humans, then why advocate for genocide/extinction of the species? If it doesn't come from a place of caring for other humans, then why not advocate for violence?
I guess why should they advocate for violence? This has a similar energy to "if you don't believe in God/ the bible then how do you know right from wrong?". The idea of living long and dying out pretty tacitly implies that they believe the winning strategy is for people to carry out the rest of their natural lifespan without passing on the baton. Most VHEMT volunteers do care about other humans and still have loved ones, friends, neighbours. They can still contribute to charities or serve their communities. Even if they didn't particularly care about other humans, most people don't want to resort to violence. It hurts other people and causes anguish, distress and suffering. They want fewer people but they're still capable of empathy.
That's the thing. Vast majority of humanity doesn't contribute much to this.
Apologies, you might have misunderstood what I meant by this and I'm actually in agreement with you here but coming from a different angle. You're absolutely right that the majority of carbon emissions are being created by a select few at the top, including corporations that we are pretty much all forced to engage with unless we give up on participating in society and go back to living in caves. You're also right about food insecurity and the unequal distribution of food, water, etc. which is unfortunately a feature and not a bug.
Those things are bad enough, but it's also our social care networks (mental health, healthcare generally, welfare for the vulnerable, support for low income people and parents) that haven't scaled. It's intensely infuriating that they could be, (if only we would co-operate more!) but they aren't. If humans aren't prepared to co-operate to the level that things can be made fairer and more equitable for everyone, then is making less of "everyone" by refusing to chuck more people into the system and scaling things back down such a terrible idea?
I enjoyed your comment, and would maybe suggest one thing. I think life enjoys itself in all its forms. Sidestepping questions of sapience, sentience, capacity for suffering, etc, life generally...
I enjoyed your comment, and would maybe suggest one thing. I think life enjoys itself in all its forms. Sidestepping questions of sapience, sentience, capacity for suffering, etc, life generally seeks to sustain itself, not just at the species propagation level, but in many cases, at the individual level.
This feeds into my general philosophy of trying to live a life that reduces suffering, in a better, not perfect way.
I think, where possible and practicable, we, individually and collectively should avoid causing the suffering of other creatures, humans included. I don't think that past extinction events being a reality should change the moral landscape of minimizing suffering. So while I reject the argument that it would be better for humans to die out in the name of biodiversity, I do think that a well developed moral agent will also recognize the value in minimizing harm as at least a first amongst equal set of constraints in making both moral and practical determinations.
I very much agree with minimizing harm when possible, but I also think that implementing this as an absolute ethical principle would lead to a lot of reductions in life quality for humans. For...
I very much agree with minimizing harm when possible, but I also think that implementing this as an absolute ethical principle would lead to a lot of reductions in life quality for humans. For example, even the act of creating living spaces for ourselves necessitates cutting down some areas. I think, to a degree, acts such as this are acceptable. That's what I meant by right to destruction.
The mentality I follow can be likened to some thoughts of earlier humans, where they recognized nature's preciousness but also of its cruel necessities. So they very much normalized killing animals and such, and saw this as "natural", but also still respected other life forms when possible. This is not to say I think animal industry as it is should continue, but to illustrate a point about the similarity between my right to destruction idea due to limitations in nature, and a similar attitude in earlier humans.
Maximizing or minimizing on a single axis generally leads to poor outcomes, which is why I couched things in terms of what is practicable, and described the minimization of suffering as being a...
Maximizing or minimizing on a single axis generally leads to poor outcomes, which is why I couched things in terms of what is practicable, and described the minimization of suffering as being a "first amongst peer" constraints.
Life generally doesn't allow for no suffering. Even sidestepping the original question of human-nature interactions, minimizing human suffering as an absolute maxim would lead to problems. For example, balancing suffering against individual agency, i.e., curbing individual freedoms to keep individuals from harming themselves. Then it becomes, how do we minimize suffering while maximizing agency, and what is the right balance. And then as you add additional constraints, the problem becomes more nuanced.
Going back to the question of nature, there is a point where the "marginal utility" of humans consuming a unit resource is small relative to the harm to nature, e.g., biodiversity, pollution, etc. Much of the harm to our planets environment, as well as the taking of resources from future human generations, is somewhere in that gray area of diminishing marginal utility.
Succinctly put. I think anti-natalism is an extreme example of this maximization/minimization problem, where the suffering of other life forms due to human activies is tried to be minimized...
Succinctly put. I think anti-natalism is an extreme example of this maximization/minimization problem, where the suffering of other life forms due to human activies is tried to be minimized without considering other angles. It suffers from hyperfocusing on a single problem without considering the surrounding context.
Let's set aside that this seems to be pure distilled eco-fascism for a minute. This seems self-defeating. Inevitably most people will won't join; just people who are conscientious enough to join...
Let's set aside that this seems to be pure distilled eco-fascism for a minute.
This seems self-defeating. Inevitably most people will won't join; just people who are conscientious enough to join such a movement, who will be less represented within a generation.
I'm deeply moved by climate and environmental issues, and view groups like this as worse than ineffective. They basically concede the neoliberal rhetoric that it isn't possible for humanity to meaningfullly coexist with nature.
Also, if one truly believes that humans cannot fundamentally coexist with nature, why should their extinction be "voluntary"? Exterminators don't get consent from the pests they remove. It seems that if one is truly committed to these ideals, then all manner of atrocities can be justified (and often are by eco fascist thinkers.)
On the other hand, if one views human inviability and intrinsic worth as so paramount that they think consent is required for a fundamentally destructive species to be exterminated then it's hard to square that with their goal of species eradication.
Either nature is more important than human inviability or it isn't; they cannot have it both ways. And to concede that we can't have both harms environmental progress.
There was a religious group called Shakers, loosely related to Quakers which is the religion I was raised with. Shakers believed, and I don’t quite understand this chain of logic, that in heaven...
There was a religious group called Shakers, loosely related to Quakers which is the religion I was raised with. Shakers believed, and I don’t quite understand this chain of logic, that in heaven there is no sex or carnal pleasure and thus sex is not godly and should not be performed on earth (just trying to recall what my parents told me). They adopted a lot of children but unsurprisingly they died out. They did however become excellent woodworkers with all their free time.
There’s a reason religions often mandate proliferation through children, coerced marriages, and banning divorces. It is one of the strongest ways to ensure memetic success. Any meme that includes dying childless is going to be short lived.
I think you're overcomplicating the argument. For the record, I don't agree with the VHEMT, but I can see what they're saying. Perhaps look at like this: A king feels that his right to rule hinges...
I think you're overcomplicating the argument. For the record, I don't agree with the VHEMT, but I can see what they're saying.
Perhaps look at like this: A king feels that his right to rule hinges upon his ability to protect his people and take care of them. Upon failing this in some major way, he abdicates the throne and says he has not lived up to his responsibilities, thus does not deserve to rule.
There can be no doubt that humans are different from the other animals in our world. People can debate the differences, but our superior intelligence is at least one we can all agree on. It has given us a lot of power over the world around us. And like the king in my example, many think we have abused this power or, more accurately, that our species is fundamentally non-viable in a world of limited resources and delicate balancing acts.
In it's most basic form, the VHEMT seems to be saying that we should voluntarily abdicate our throne. I'm not sure that making the movement voluntary says anything super unique about the importance of human consent. Basically, they don't want to commit violent genocide but think humans have the ability to see that they are incompatible with a balanced ecosystem.
Anyway, in my view, all animals are "selfish" and only held back by limitations which are out of their control. I think any animal with a mutation which granted high-intelligence would be pretty similar to humans. If you look at nature, it's all competition, all the time. In fact, humans may be the only hope at life moving past that stage. I also happen to think existence is a gift and that we can solve our problems with science. I'm hopeful for our future in the long term.
I think my central criticisms still stand. 1. They completely concede the environmental movement. This adopts a tactic common in eco-fascism of reframing the central conflict between those who...
Exemplary
I think my central criticisms still stand.
1. They completely concede the environmental movement.
This adopts a tactic common in eco-fascism of reframing the central conflict between those who profit from environmental destruction and workers/consumers to being a conflict between humanity and nature. This concedes the entire environmental movement, and abandons attempts to make progress on the actually existing conflict.
2. They make mutually exclusive value judgements
Here is my attempt at a consistent view:
In my value system, nature is worth preserving for the benefit of humanity. Natural selection and life itself is especially adaptive; over incomprehensible periods of time nature will adapt to whatever changes we made to this planet during our comparatively short time. Life and nature do not need our buy-in to continue to exist. The environment and ecosystem should be protected because this is the state of nature where humanity flourishes. Extant species should be preserved because we may not know what benefits they bring (pharmacological, ecological, etc.) Extinction is a natural process: Earth can adapt and life can still flourish in conditions where humans cannot. In a sentence: nature is important because humans are important.
The inconsistency in VHEMT:
This movement seems to seesaw between value judgements on humanity and nature. If nature is truly more valuable than humanity, then it wouldn't be necessary to desire the consensual extermination of humanity. If it is actually true that nature is more valuable than humanity, then one should use any tool at their disposal towards that end. If however humanity is more valuable than nature, or nature's value is contingent on its utility for humanity, then framing human extinction as a moral good is incoherent.
3. Its premises include non-factual eco-fascist claims and rhetoric
We are not having an overpopulation crisis, this has been debunked time and time again, yet remains the principle complaint of both eco-fascists and apparently VHEMT. We currently produce far more food than needed to feed the entire world, and could produce far more than we do. This reframes conflicts centered on global inequality as merely a consequence of overpopulation.
Reframing the issues of global markets in profiting from pollution/environmental destruction and food/wealth inequality as instead fundamental problems with humanity itself does more to exacerbate the problem than it does to alleviate it.
Again, I'm not myself a member of the VHEMT, I don't agree with them at all, I think their movement will die out, etc. But I feel I have to stand up for them a bit in the face of your argument....
Again, I'm not myself a member of the VHEMT, I don't agree with them at all, I think their movement will die out, etc. But I feel I have to stand up for them a bit in the face of your argument.
You're insisting on a violent form of utilitarianism where none is necessary. In their ideal world, humans voluntarily choose to reduce their numbers or even extinct themselves entirely. Because humans have limited lifespans, there is no need for violent genocide or cruelty in this worldview.
If we took your argument and applied it to eating meat, then should all meat eaters relish the idea of tightly-packed rows of cattle being slaughtered in the most efficient way, no matter how cruel? Why do so many people opt for free-range chicken and buy meat that claims to be cruelty free? Of course it's not actually free of any suffering, but the attempt demonstrates that people can have a desire for compassion while dealing with death and nature.
I also find your views on insect eradication interesting (and again, violently utilitarian). Personally, I do feel bad when I exterminate insects and other "pests." I try to avoid it wherever possible and I feel genuine remorse when I have to do it. I'll try other means first and would easily use non-lethal methods if/when available.
Sure, until we have a better way, the outcome may be the same for the chipmunk in my wall, and you could argue that it's just needless hand-wringing, but I think there is value in seeking other solutions and only reluctantly engaging in the killing of other animals. It's one of the things I like most about humans. Our ability to reason and empathize, to avoid cruelty, is very beautiful to me. Without this reluctance, I don't think we would have as many meat alternatives in the works as we do now. Avoiding cruelty and killing is definitely a huge driving force behind lab-grown meat and impossible burgers.
Apologies in advance if this comment gets too sci-fi but we're already deep into hypotheticals and philosophizing. Let's consider these two assumptions: There's nothing special about human...
In their ideal world, humans voluntarily choose to reduce their numbers or even extinct themselves entirely. B
Apologies in advance if this comment gets too sci-fi but we're already deep into hypotheticals and philosophizing.
Let's consider these two assumptions:
There's nothing special about human selfishness. If in millions of years other species advanced to our stage they'd be just as catastrophic to the environment. This is impossible to prove but given what we've observed in nature (no species checks itself, famine and other catastrophes or feedback loops do it for them) and that any earthen species will follow the same path of competition etc that humans did, I don't think it's such a wild assumption.
A technologically advanced civilization (one more advanced than our current one) is the only way life on this solar system survives major catastrophes.
Then it only follows that humans voluntarily "abdicating" their position and going extinct is actually counter-productive for the long-term survival of life. Life which, while we speculate can exist elsewhere, has never been proven to.
Or more playfully put, when the asteroid comes you want humans to science up some Bruce Willis shit (or at the very least dig some bunkers and fauna/flora vaults) and punch it in the face; you won't be looking to cows to save the only known instance of life in the universe. When the sun explodes you want to be grazing in some off-world colony or space habitat, not getting vaporized on this doomed hunk of rock.
This is very likely true but represents an unlikely hypothetical situation. In our present reality, we don't have to worry about the looming threat of Gary Larson's cow tools and we are the only...
There's nothing special about human selfishness. If in millions of years other species advanced to our stage they'd be just as catastrophic to the environment.
This is very likely true but represents an unlikely hypothetical situation. In our present reality, we don't have to worry about the looming threat of Gary Larson's cow tools and we are the only species having an impact of this magnitude as well as the level of consciousness and reasoning to do something to change it.
A technologically advanced civilization (one more advanced than our current one) is the only way life on this solar system survives major catastrophes.
I don't really think that's correct. There hasn't been any mass extinction event previously which has ended 100% of life on earth. Certainly there have been times that it's come close; I think the Permian extinction did something mad like 80% - 90% of known life, but there have always been survivors to cling on, adapt and fill the niches.
Major catastrophes on the level that you describe tend to be a pretty brutal and unpleasant time for everyone involved though. If it were coming about as a result of something entirely out of our hands then I think it would be an easier pill to swallow in some ways, although it would still be human nature to try and work towards a solution (punching the asteroid in the face). But it's nothing as high octane and Bruce Willis-y as an asteroid, it's a slow, insidious temperature creep that we've had a very significant hand in accelerating.
In about a billion years or so the Sun will have gotten hot enough to bake all life off Earth, and then it will swallow Earth within about 5 billion years. Without intelligent intervention those...
There hasn't been any mass extinction event previously which has ended 100% of life on earth. Certainly there have been times that it's come close; I think the Permian extinction did something mad like 80% - 90% of known life, but there have always been survivors to cling on, adapt and fill the niches.
In about a billion years or so the Sun will have gotten hot enough to bake all life off Earth, and then it will swallow Earth within about 5 billion years. Without intelligent intervention those are the hard limits for life on Earth.
However, intelligent life is capable of preserving nature beyond that point not only by colonizing other star systems, bringing life with them wherever they go, but also by extending the Sun's life far beyond its natural limits.
That's a fair point, but we can still work together to figure that out with fewer people. In fact, we might stand a better chance of working it out if the overwhelming majority of our population...
That's a fair point, but we can still work together to figure that out with fewer people. In fact, we might stand a better chance of working it out if the overwhelming majority of our population is well educated, well fed and not competing for resources (I acknowledge that some of that competition is currently being driven by artificial scarcity). Those conditions sound like they would encourage people to be more co-operative.
We could probably meet everyone's basic needs right now but the sad fact is that we are not, and there's still the big question of whether that would be a good thing for everything else living on earth given our large numbers. If resources aren't going to be scaled up to meet everybody's needs then it seems like the next best thing is to scale ourselves down.
The sad fact is that we are not experiencing a shortage of resources to support the current population, or even the much expanded future populations. We are experiencing a shortage of distribution...
The sad fact is that we are not experiencing a shortage of resources to support the current population, or even the much expanded future populations. We are experiencing a shortage of distribution of resources.
Working out major interstellar-scale megastructures would be easier if everyone is educated, well fed, etc., but that doesn't require there be less of us.
Last point: if you have two groups, one is pro-growth and the other is anti-growth, eventually no matter how small a minority the pro-growth group start out as, eventually it will be the majority. Even if you could convince 99.9% of all humans to reduce the population by not having kids, the remaining .1% would eventually become a pro-growth majority again. For that reason alone voluntary extinction will never amount to more than a drop in the ocean. Add to that the fact that you'll never convince a notable minority of people, let alone a majority, to reduce the population. And then add to that the fact that the people most likely to cooperate in a population reduction effort are also the people most likely to cooperate for the good of humankind in some other, more productive way. Instead of ridding the Earth of humans willing to cooperate, I recommend trying to influence the world by making as many cooperators as possible in the hopes of vastly outnumbering the people who selfishly cause artificial shortages.
And yet, more people are choosing not to have children. Many of them without believing in or being aware of VHEMT and having other motivations. Even if they aren't part of the movement, it's...
Add to that the fact that you'll never convince a notable minority of people, let alone a majority, to reduce the population
And yet, more people are choosing not to have children. Many of them without believing in or being aware of VHEMT and having other motivations. Even if they aren't part of the movement, it's considered a success every time somebody chooses not to reproduce.
True it's unlikely that the majority of people will ever be convinced of this school of thought, but it's being reported that the birth rate is dropping across the world anyway. I am only sorry that some of it will be for sadder reasons (i.e. people not being able to afford it), but as someone else pointed out earlier there are some good ones too, like a reduction in the stigma of being childless/ childfree.
Instead of ridding the Earth of humans willing to cooperate, I recommend trying to influence the world by making as many cooperators as possible in the hopes of vastly outnumbering the people who selfishly cause artificial shortages.
I don't think that's the aim. Of course we want people to co-operate, that's how problems get solved. It seems rather wasteful to just keep churning out new people when we could also be trying to make more co-operators of our existing population too. It's like that Stephen Jay Gould quote:
“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”
We probably already have the next generation of big problem solvers here, I dread to think how many of them aren't realising their potential because of this inability (or more accurately, unwillingness by a select few) to distribute our resources sensibly. It's a stupid game and I increasingly feel like the only way to win is not to play.
We can have fewer people AND more teamwork, and in fact that's the gold standard outcome I'd like to see.
If it's genuinely believed that nature > humanity, one should be advocating for nuclear war, as nature will almost certainly recover after a few thousand years, but humanity will be gone. Kinda...
If it is actually true that nature is more valuable than humanity, then one should use any tool at their disposal towards that end
If it's genuinely believed that nature > humanity, one should be advocating for nuclear war, as nature will almost certainly recover after a few thousand years, but humanity will be gone. Kinda like chemo for the cancer of human society.
This is why this belief is used by eco-fascists to organize. Nuclear war, mass sterilization, genocide; little is off the table. However nothing humans are doing today is threatening life or...
If it's genuinely believed that nature > humanity, one should be advocating for nuclear war, as nature will almost certainly recover after a few thousand years, but humanity will be gone.
This is why this belief is used by eco-fascists to organize. Nuclear war, mass sterilization, genocide; little is off the table.
However nothing humans are doing today is threatening life or nature in general. Life will adapt and potentially flourish millions of years from now. What we are doing is making life less livable for humans. We need extant species to survive, we need contemporary ecosystems to continue existing. Life, more broadly, does not. There will be new species and new ecosystems that will develop long after humanity is gone. If one values nature more than people then there's really no reason to be concerned about the current state of affairs at all.
Value judgements eh? I've always believed that the individual frame of reference was the default. With the framing of self-interest, consistency in terms of value judgements is trivial. I would...
Value judgements eh? I've always believed that the individual frame of reference was the default. With the framing of self-interest, consistency in terms of value judgements is trivial. I would say that people value (the rest of) humanity because it is provides a greater psychological or material benefit to them than "nature". In this case, the idea of consent seems to be the most in their interest. Nature is secondary. The intrinsic value of anything does not necessarily play into it.
Eco-fascism does not value consent. I also think you dismiss the overpopulation argument too easily. It's been a long time, and there's still no answer to the very repugnant conclusion.
I don't know how one can value the consent of a being that they find has little to no intrinsic worth. There are many bugs that I kill by the thousands because their existence is a minor...
In this case, the idea of consent seems to be the most in their interest. Nature is secondary. The intrinsic value of anything does not necessarily play into it.
I don't know how one can value the consent of a being that they find has little to no intrinsic worth. There are many bugs that I kill by the thousands because their existence is a minor inconvenience to me. The only way I'd care about a bug's consent would be if I held the belief that bugs have much higher worth than I currently believe that they do.
I also think you dismiss the overpopulation argument too easily. It's been a long time, and there's still no answer to the very repugnant conclusion.
I think the original comment under #3 addresses the overpopulation argument well. We don't have an overpopulation problem, and we have far more resources than required to meet the needs of everyone multiple times over.
Valuing consent is the pragmatic thing to do. If you want to have your autonomy respected, it seems like making sure you respect the autonomy of others is in your self-interest. I know I said...
Valuing consent is the pragmatic thing to do. If you want to have your autonomy respected, it seems like making sure you respect the autonomy of others is in your self-interest. I know I said something somewhat contradictory earlier, but I don't really think it's that unlikely that they believe consent has intrinsic worth that outweighs nature as well. Voluntary is in their name, after all.
I don't think the fact that humans haven't reached carrying capacity is an answer to the question of overpopulation, because it simply assumes that the carrying capacity is the optimal population. All that means is that we are far from starving if food was effectively distributed, but it doesn't mean the population has not exceeded the optimal number that takes into account factors such as sustainability and standard of living. It is probable, but still not clear if society has exceeded the population that maximizes the standard of living possible.
The very repugnant conclusion simply shows that it is difficult to determine this optimal population.
Yes, but this project is inherently selfless; it seeks to end humanity in service of "nature." Unless they think a consensual approach is the most effective means to achieving this end (a claim...
Valuing consent is the pragmatic thing to do. If you want to have your autonomy respected, it seems like making sure you respect the autonomy of others is in your self-interest.
Yes, but this project is inherently selfless; it seeks to end humanity in service of "nature." Unless they think a consensual approach is the most effective means to achieving this end (a claim which seems very unlikely), its hard to see why they'd care about the interests of oneself or of others in their pursuit of this higher-order good of eliminating humanity.
I don't really think it's that unlikely that they believe consent has intrinsic worth that outweighs nature as well. Voluntary is in their name, after all.
I'd assume they don't care about the consent of bugs to be exterminated, or even of pets to be put down when needed, so what is it about human consent that makes it so intrinsically important that it even outweighs "saving nature?" And since "saving nature" is even more important than humanity itself, we get a value hierarchy like this:
Human consent
Nature
Humans themselves?!
Non-human consent
Perhaps that could avoid my worry that their values are internally incoherent, but it is somehow even more baffling than if it were merely logically flawed.
Funny. I've always thought of it as exactly the reason the movement has never caught on. That the order of their values are too unconventional (the same would be true for most other fringe...
Funny. I've always thought of it as exactly the reason the movement has never caught on. That the order of their values are too unconventional (the same would be true for most other fringe groups). I suspect it's just how they are as a person. That's why I don't believe in their selflessness, and recognize it as simply ego. Service of nature in turn serves themselves.
This viewpoint feels fairly adjacent to another question that comes up a lot: "if you believe it so much, why don't you just kill yourself then?". The majority of people that believe in VHEMT...
This viewpoint feels fairly adjacent to another question that comes up a lot: "if you believe it so much, why don't you just kill yourself then?". The majority of people that believe in VHEMT aren't edgelords baying for world wars and nuclear fallout. In fact, a large number of them (myself included) don't even want total extinction of the species, just a much, much lower and more sustainable population.
The connection often gets drawn that because we want less human life, we also don't particularly value it but in my experience it's just not true. There doesn't have to be a conceding of the idea that humans can coexist with nature, despite initial appearances these aren't conflicting ideals. I just think that in order to successfully do that, we need to start downsizing. Obliterating everyone in the space of a few seconds would be an incredibly wasteful way to do that and possibly involve more severe casulaties to the flora and fauna around us; I'd much rather that birth rates gradually declined and adoption rates increased so that everybody who's here can enjoy a higher standard of living.
The motto is "may we live long and die out" for a reason. :)
You seem to have good intentions and are operating in good faith, but I should let you know this is pure distilled eco-fascism.
In fact, a large number of them (myself included) don't even want total extinction of the species, just a much, much lower and more sustainable population.
You seem to have good intentions and are operating in good faith, but I should let you know this is pure distilled eco-fascism.
Not the person you're responding too, but I think attempting to associate 'lower population is desirable and good for the environment' as the defining characteristic of eco-fascism comes off as...
Not the person you're responding too, but I think attempting to associate 'lower population is desirable and good for the environment' as the defining characteristic of eco-fascism comes off as reductionist. By way of analogy to normal fascism, this is akin to saying 'nationalism is distilled fascism' during a discussion about how some people want nation states. You can have a reasoned disagreement about nationalism, and even bring up fascism as an example of its ills, without trying to equate the two. For the topic at hand, disagreeing about whether population reduction is good or bad (as you've well argued elsewhere) is fine, but I think trying to pin any group who shares the goal of population reduction to eco-fascism is painting with too broad a brush. Intentions, values, and proposed means matter when it comes to what a movement will actually do, so not every group which shares a part of ecofascism's goals is necessarily worthy of being labeled under that banner. In particular, I think that VHEMT don't share ecofascism's ultra nationalist, anti-immigration, totalitarian efforts to commit genocide which seems like the important criteria for being labeled as such.
That's not the claim I'm making. I'll try to restate this another way. Eco-fascism makes two central claims: There is a current overpopulation crisis, and this crisis is what's responsible for the...
Not the person you're responding too, but I think attempting to associate 'lower population is desirable and good for the environment' as the defining characteristic of eco-fascism comes off as reductionist.
That's not the claim I'm making. I'll try to restate this another way. Eco-fascism makes two central claims:
There is a current overpopulation crisis, and this crisis is what's responsible for the environmental destruction we see today
The only way to stop this environmental destruction is to solve problem #1
Neither of these claims are true. And I think a fair bit of skepticism is warranted whenever any group "shares the goal of population reduction." I get that VHEMT disagrees on the means, but if I can get you to adopt this specific world-view, moving to eco-fascism isn't really that big a stretch any longer, especially when the inadequacy of anti-natalism in solving this becomes clear.
(Also, minor nit, but I don't view nationalism to be a necessary component of eco-fascism, although it is commonly associated with it.)
I'm not trying to assert that these claims are true. I personally agree that they are false! I support most of your arguments made elsewhere. Absolutely, your skepticism is warranted. Different...
Neither of these claims are true.
I'm not trying to assert that these claims are true. I personally agree that they are false! I support most of your arguments made elsewhere.
And I think a fair bit of skepticism is warranted whenever any group "shares the goal of population reduction."
Absolutely, your skepticism is warranted. Different ideologies are more or less susceptible to various immoral/violent behaviors and antinatalism is more susceptible than most. But ecofascism requires extra characteristics of violence and oppression which those claims alone don't necessitate, especially if they're only weakly held by most members. There's a careful balance to be had between persuading people away from potential treadmills to fascism while still not alienating them by jumping to call everything along that pathway fascism. I think your earlier comment strayed enough into lumping antinatalism for environmental reasons into ecofascism such that I wanted to comment.
but if I can get you to adopt this specific world-view, moving to eco-fascism isn't really that big a stretch any longer, especially when the inadequacy of anti-natalism in solving this becomes clear.
This is where I'd most disagree - I think there's a pretty big gap between voluntarily choosing not to have kids and being willing to commit/permit genocide or other oppressive behaviors. I'd also wager that most people who make that jump are doing so not out of any logical conclusion of the core tenets but primarily due to other factors, factors which might arise across all sorts of ideologies. To some degree I'd rather focus on those factors - fatalism, sense of powerlessness, in vs out group thinking, dogmatic adherence - than on whether some tenets share more or less with ecofascism. I think if you removed antinatalism something like ecofascism could still arise just under a different set of tenets (eg. "western countries have their pollution under control, its all those /other/ countries who are causing harm, so let's all go hate on them.") as long as those other factors persist.
You've said that a few times, but having heard what the spokespeople have to say I'm just not totally convinced of that argument. The language you've used in your discussion implies that you might...
You've said that a few times, but having heard what the spokespeople have to say I'm just not totally convinced of that argument. The language you've used in your discussion implies that you might not have read much of the source material - which I can't necessarily blame you for! In the same way, I'm confident that neo nazi ideology is thoroughly abhorrent and I know that sitting through a screening of Europa isn't going to change my mind, so I wouldn't bother indulging anyone who thought otherwise (though in fairness I think you're less likely to encounter someone operating in good faith there).
At the very least I can say that the people behind VHEMT are well aware that the movement has almost zero chance of succeeding at the rather reductionist end goal of 0 people:
VHEMT Volunteers are realistic. We know we’ll never see the day there are no human beings on the planet. Ours is a long-range goal.
A lot of them don't even really want that:
Most Volunteers subscribe to the philosophy embodied in the motto “May we live long and die out”, but if someone doesn’t want to live long that’s their business. Really, the only action required for becoming a VHEMT Volunteer or Supporter is not adding another human being to the population. A couple could conceivably be expecting and decide to become VHEMT. That new human would be the last one they produced. VHEMT Supporters are not necessarily in favor of human extinction, but agree that no more of us should be created at this time.
They welcome people who have already had children and make a conscious choice not to have more:
Today’s children are tomorrow’s destiny. Our children have the potential for achieving the awareness needed to reverse civilization’s direction and begin restoring Earth’s biosphere. Most could use our help in realizing their full potentials.
A primary interest is in reducing net suffering, which they believe they can do by making fewer new lives:
True, wildlife rapidly going extinct and tens of thousands of children dying each day are not laughing matters, but neither laughing nor bemoaning will change what’s happening. We may as well have some fun as we work and play toward a better world.
Do eco-facists exist within and co-opt the movement for their own benefit? Probably. However, I don't think they represent the majority and the people that coined the name for the movement are fairly explicit about their ethos. If there's anything out there that suggests otherwise though, I'd want to know about it. I'm not precious about labels and wouldn't hesitate to drop VHEMT while maintaining my own beliefs.
Concisely defining eco-fascism, much like defining fascism itself, is a difficult task. One of the primary characteristics of eco-fascism is the insistence in an alleged population crisis that is...
Concisely defining eco-fascism, much like defining fascism itself, is a difficult task. One of the primary characteristics of eco-fascism is the insistence in an alleged population crisis that is destroying nature; a problem for which the only solution is a sharp depopulation of the planet. Perhaps VHEMT is nothing more than tragically worded anti-natalism, but the parallels set off alarms for me, especially the insistence on this same non-existent population crisis.
It's also important to know that eco-fascists are deceptive and creep into environmental spaces at any opportunity. If you do real life organizing in the environmental or green space you WILL deal with eco-fascists seeking to co-opt your movement and organization. Everyone from well-established NGOs to green anarchists deal with this problem, and these folks aren't going to go out right and say they are a fascist. Just like we saw in the mid-'10s, they try to maintain some plausible deniability, and seek to hide their "power level" to allow it to grow, usually towards some right-wing accelerationist end.
VHEMT may not be at all associated with such things. But when fascist talking points are spread, it's important to recognize them even if the one spreading the points is doing so without malicious intent.
This feels tonally quite different from the emphatic assertion that it is "pure, distilled eco-facism". If one of the defining characteristics is specifically a sharp depopulation rather than a...
This feels tonally quite different from the emphatic assertion that it is "pure, distilled eco-facism". If one of the defining characteristics is specifically a sharp depopulation rather than a relatively gradual one then I think that claim holds a lot less water. I guess it is a particular branch/ flavour of anitnatalism.
I won't deny that I have seen a few who say they don't care about ongoing wars and conflicts and actively consider them a good thing for reducing the population, but Les Knight (the guy who the term VHEMT is attributed to and has been speaking on the subject for decades now) is still generally quite active in disavowing them. Most others also think they are complete idiots and don't take them seriously, so thankfully they tend not to persist in discussions.
You're completely right that these sorts of ideologies have a habit of creeping into well meaning spaces like this, not just environmental ones. I have some worries about what will happen to the movement when Les isn't able to fly the banner anymore for whatever reason; it'll create a vaccuum that genuinely is ripe for being filled by someone with less well intentioned ideals.
It sounds like maybe I should read some Les Knight before passing any further judgement on the group. I'm stealing this from a comment I just wrote, but I want to make my position more clear....
It sounds like maybe I should read some Les Knight before passing any further judgement on the group.
I'm stealing this from a comment I just wrote, but I want to make my position more clear. Eco-fascism makes two central claims:
There is a current overpopulation crisis, and this crisis is what's responsible for the environmental destruction we see today
The only way to stop this environmental destruction is to solve problem #1
Neither #1 or #2 are true, but if VHEMT can convince you that they are, you have adopted essentially the foundational beliefs of eco-fascism. When mere anti-natalism doesn't pay off and you truly believe both of these things, I worry that eco-fascism starts to actually look like a reasonable option.
Isn't a key component for fascism — and by extension eco-fascism — that it is authoritarian? If we disregard that aspect, shouldn't we by similar argument for instance call all veganism some form...
Isn't a key component for fascism — and by extension eco-fascism — that it is authoritarian?
If we disregard that aspect, shouldn't we by similar argument for instance call all veganism some form of fascism? Someone who believes killing animals is wrong might be motivated to take drastic action to stop the bigger ongoing crime.
RobotOverlord525's post on the NYT's opinion piece about declining birth rates got me thinking that there tends not to be much acknowledgement of people that are doing this as part of a far more...
RobotOverlord525's post on the NYT's opinion piece about declining birth rates got me thinking that there tends not to be much acknowledgement of people that are doing this as part of a far more conscious effort.
VHEMT's website looks rather dated but they are still fairly active, I'd probably say far more active than they were back in the 90s. I don't think it's a coincidence that there's an increasing number of people choosing not to have children. There's a real feeling of hopelessness among the general public in a lot of places, primarily because we're being ravaged by the effects of late stage capitalism and possibly also the climate crisis which is getting a lot harder to ignore or deny. What sort of life is that to inflict on someone?
On a personal level, my views align with VHEMT. I put my money where my mouth is and got sterilised as soon as I turned 30, a procedure that I had to fight tooth and nail for which involved me sending a sarcastic letter to the surgeon who refused to do the surgery every single month for several years. My partner and I are still planning on adopting and have actually just started the process for this (for me this is because I think it's important to invest in the future of someone who already exists, other half would just like the full family experience).
I'd be interested to know if there's anyone else who has similar feelings or is even vehemently (vhemtly?) opposed to the concept.
Not exactly what you asked for a response, but this feels absurd to me. I just got sterilized a few months ago at a similar age. I called the place, set up an appointment a week later, and they...
Not exactly what you asked for a response, but this feels absurd to me.
On a personal level, my views align with VHEMT. I put my money where my mouth is and got sterilised as soon as I turned 30, a procedure that I had to fight tooth and nail for which involved me sending a sarcastic letter to the surgeon who refused to do the surgery every single month for several years.
I just got sterilized a few months ago at a similar age. I called the place, set up an appointment a week later, and they got me in and out in 30 minutes with the only questions being "Still want to do this?" and "Any music requests?"
I'm very jealous but also really glad your experience was so straightforward! I've known since I was about 13 that I didn't want kids of my own, I still had to have a number of meetings, telephone...
I'm very jealous but also really glad your experience was so straightforward! I've known since I was about 13 that I didn't want kids of my own, I still had to have a number of meetings, telephone consults, interview with a psychiatrist to have a professional verify that I wasn't nuts, etc. The surgeon obviously realised I wasn't backing down because I got confirmation that I was scheduled for the procedure maybe a week after my 30th birthday (thankfully with a different surgeon).
It's been a complete slog but well worth it. It's hard to explain but I feel more complete as a person.
My wife went through the same thing. Even when the surgeon visited her just before the surgery, she was still basically trying to talk my wife out of it. It was a very frustrating experience, but...
My wife went through the same thing. Even when the surgeon visited her just before the surgery, she was still basically trying to talk my wife out of it. It was a very frustrating experience, but she doesn't regret a thing a decade later.
The 'age 30' thing is no coincidence. There is a significant subset of women who do not want children throughout their teens and 20s and then around age 30 abruptly change their mind. I'm not...
The 'age 30' thing is no coincidence.
There is a significant subset of women who do not want children throughout their teens and 20s and then around age 30 abruptly change their mind. I'm not speculating on whether this is prompted by social or physiological changes, but it absolutely happens.
Consequently health care professionals are loathe to sterilise young childless women, in case they experience this change in perspective and then a significant avoidable regret.
Their reasoning is along the lines that reversible contraception is easy and effective (comparatively speaking) but that permanent sterilisation is, well, permanent - and so it's better to opt for the reversible version in the first instance.
Good point! It was explained to me that this wasn't out of malice and was following specific guidelines for this exact reason, but given my extensive history and incompatibility with other long...
Good point! It was explained to me that this wasn't out of malice and was following specific guidelines for this exact reason, but given my extensive history and incompatibility with other long term contraceptives (one of which I had fitted at the surgeon's insistence and subsequently landed me in A&E) it was incredibly frustrating that she continued to parrot this and that an exception couldn't be made. It's hard to think of what she could have said to make things better, but her delivery/ bedside manner was pretty poor.
I do always enjoy how mad people get at this movement. It seems to just rustle the collective "jimmies" of all non pessimists. I find pessimistic philosophy a fascinating study mostly due to the...
I do always enjoy how mad people get at this movement. It seems to just rustle the collective "jimmies" of all non pessimists. I find pessimistic philosophy a fascinating study mostly due to the fact that they acknowledge that people don't like to think about these things or will actively challenge the philosophy because of some deep seated need to prove them wrong.
I find that there are some of us that are drawn towards pessimistic philosophy because of its conclusions, where how repugnant the conclusion is increases our credence in the claim itself. There...
Exemplary
I find that there are some of us that are drawn towards pessimistic philosophy because of its conclusions, where how repugnant the conclusion is increases our credence in the claim itself.
There was some video essayist who coined the term masochistic epistemology: if a statement hurts, then it must be true, because if it weren't true, it wouldn't hurt. The context isn't terribly important, but there seem to be variants of what I'll call "dark epistemology": on 4chan's /pol/, the more "triggering" a belief is for "the libs" the more likely that belief is to be true. Those denying the truth of the belief are those merely incapable of handling the repugnant conclusion, and delude themselves to avoid it. Similar sorts of thought processes occur in debates on race and gender issues (e.g., they just can't handle the truth about that race or gender.)
I do always enjoy how mad people get at this movement. It seems to just rustle the collective "jimmies" of all non pessimists.
This reminds me of mid '10s political discourse, where terms like "triggering the libs" were used and trolling was a large part of online discourse. I'm not saying pessimistic philosophy is necessarily like this discourse, rather that some of the same motivations are likely at play. As evidenced by your sentiment, part of us just likes seeing others get mad when we break them out of their fairy-tale to tell them how the world really is (or at least how we think that it is.)
I am bothered by comments like this, because they are condescending and unearned, not to mention hurtful to possibility of communication. Just because people are upset or bothered by an idea, it...
I am bothered by comments like this, because they are condescending and unearned, not to mention hurtful to possibility of communication. Just because people are upset or bothered by an idea, it doesn't make that idea right, and it's not a particularly keen observation to point out that people have strong emotional reactions to critical attacks on the fundamental value of our existence. It certainly doesn't make the commenter above some petty emotional riffraff.
I have the second most popular comment at the moment, and contrary to your opinion, I have thought and think about these issues a lot. I've been riddled with chronic issues that destroyed much of what I had and what I could have, and they probably shortened my life span quite a lot. They are painful, both physically and emotionally. It's a struggle I experience every day. Death and the value of life have been on my mind a lot. And coming from a background of being a depressed but philosophically inclined kid, I read quite a bit of philosophical pessimists—Schopenhauer, Mainländer, Benatar, Cioran, Zapffe, Nietzsche, Camus, and others I can't remember. I found life-affirming pessimists to be helpful and truthful, to a degree, such as Nietzsche and Camus, but after more than a decade of contemplation, I found myself to be disagreeing quite a lot with the life-denying ones.
It's very easy to assume the people who are upset by these philosophies are simply the ones who don't want to consider them, but at the end it's just a bias, the path of least resistance. A fault in reasoning that enables one to dismiss opposing ideas without further contemplation. It costs less mental and emotional effort, that's why it exists, but it's ultimately a shortcircuit in reasoning. That's why it's unearned.
Honestly I regret the original timing of this post; I shot it off and then got buried in work and only re-entered the discussion at a relatively late stage. I don't think it helps that the...
Honestly I regret the original timing of this post; I shot it off and then got buried in work and only re-entered the discussion at a relatively late stage. I don't think it helps that the direction of the discourse has been shaped by some early commenters having a very visceral reaction to the name alone and not really looking much further into it. I would find it rather bewildering if somebody read the material and still came to the conclusion that this was a call for genocide.
There are definitely valid criticisms to be had and questions to be raised (which I've enjoyed reading and discussing!) but some of the more highly rated comments about genocide and facism feel like they've come about as the result of a sideways glance at things rather than an earnest look.
To be honest, I'm inclined to say I still wouldn't agree even if the topic was elaborated upon more, but I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt. Maybe in the future, if you want to, you...
To be honest, I'm inclined to say I still wouldn't agree even if the topic was elaborated upon more, but I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt. Maybe in the future, if you want to, you could make an introductory post explaning the movement with references and such? The page you linked seemed to support the anti-natalism angle, and this is where we disagree, but it could be that there could be more to it.
Maybe at some point :) variety is the spice of life and the world is a more interesting place when we have different perspectives but I think you're right that if I'd given a bit of preamble we...
Maybe at some point :) variety is the spice of life and the world is a more interesting place when we have different perspectives but I think you're right that if I'd given a bit of preamble we would have all been more likely to be on the same page about it, whether we agreed or not.
I guess I am failing to see how people wanting to voluntarily not reproduce and die off has anything to do with you or anyone in this thread thus my opinion that ya'll need to calm down and go...
I guess I am failing to see how people wanting to voluntarily not reproduce and die off has anything to do with you or anyone in this thread thus my opinion that ya'll need to calm down and go touch some grass. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement isn't about forcing anyone to do anything, more discussion about how shit sucks and from a pessimist standpoint "humans are dogshit".
Everyone here calling this fascism or calling it "pure hate" is just plain asinine to me. You do you though, and I'll stay childless and peace out when the time comes, sorry to "force" my fascism and hate on ya'll.
I don't even know why it has to be pessimistic! I think the far more bleak outlook is knowing that there are more people choosing not to have children who would dearly love them but simply cannot...
I don't even know why it has to be pessimistic! I think the far more bleak outlook is knowing that there are more people choosing not to have children who would dearly love them but simply cannot afford to do it. At least the people who subscribe to the VHEMT philosophy are choosing to do it because it's what they believe in. The majority of them still believe in enjoying rich, full lives full of hobbies, friends and broader contributions to society and the world around them.
I came here to make a similar top-level comment. With all the long-winded discussions of fascism, one may think that an article from the Daily Stormer got linked here. Nope: just one of the...
I came here to make a similar top-level comment. With all the long-winded discussions of fascism, one may think that an article from the Daily Stormer got linked here. Nope: just one of the relatively tame long-running societies of online kooks.
It's like everyone forgot that taking these discussions seriously is their best recruitment tool. "Look at all these people typing essays about the ecofash over something so innocuous. They must be onto something to hit such a nerve."
Pure, arrogant evil, and I don't say that lightly. Earth is already well on the backside of how much longer it will be able to support complex life. We exist now as the only creature so far that...
Pure, arrogant evil, and I don't say that lightly.
Earth is already well on the backside of how much longer it will be able to support complex life. We exist now as the only creature so far that has even the potential capacity to both shepherd our world through ecological and resource constraints, and to even potentially expand life beyond our cradle world.
We are unique among the great apes in how stunningly, amazingly cooperative we are, and it's not a close comparison. That wars and truly terrible things happen does not run counter to this. It's just such a core facet of our nature that people don't see the water for the being a fish.
I would much rather see life spread than to have another few hundred million years, whether the biosphere 'recovers' or not, then come to a toasty end as the sun heats up, with nothing but some odd carbon residue to show for it all. That would a tragedy to me.
That's an interesting viewpoint! What about the movement makes it arrogant and evil? What makes it more arrogant and evil than the conscious idea that we have dominion over everything? Or that...
That's an interesting viewpoint! What about the movement makes it arrogant and evil? What makes it more arrogant and evil than the conscious idea that we have dominion over everything? Or that through proliferation we will be the earth's saviours? Or even that our predecessors gave us life and are therefore owed more children?
I agree we can achieve incredible things when we co-operate, but we don't seem to be co-operating enough. Ecological and resource constraints don't have to be such a huge challenge if there are fewer of us (I accept that some of this is artificial scarcity being perpetuated by some very shitty people though). We can still potentially expand life beyond earth with fewer people.
I think a lower population will take some of the pressure off but it won't solve the problems we're facing; we still need brilliant, co-operative people actively working towards that.
First off, I have to say I appreciate your friendly demeanor throughout this entire thread, and I mean that sincerely. I start with that preface, because I genuinely can't tell if you are being...
First off, I have to say I appreciate your friendly demeanor throughout this entire thread, and I mean that sincerely.
I start with that preface, because I genuinely can't tell if you are being serious or trolling with your questions. Are you genuinely asking why genocide is considered evil? Are you genuinely confused why such things are more evil than trying to work to make the world a better place, as imperfect as we are?
Thank you, I promise I am being completely sincere and operating in good faith. I don't think I'm confused, but I do think that you misunderstand the movement, which is why you think VHEMT is...
Thank you, I promise I am being completely sincere and operating in good faith. I don't think I'm confused, but I do think that you misunderstand the movement, which is why you think VHEMT is suggesting that genocide isn't evil.
The definition of genocide is "the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group." At face value, this does seem like what's being asked for. However, VHEMT is not calling for anybody to be killed - and certainly does not single out any particular nation or ethnicity. They're asking for people in general to stop being born.
Moreover, the very first word "voluntary" takes priority. If you're going to read anything about the movement, I think it's got to be this summary. They very much want to make the world a better place too, and they think this is the way to do it.
I should emphasise that I largely agree with the philosophy but I don't expect or particularly want it to be taken to its literal end goal of a population of 0 people. In fact, most people that subscribe to the movement's beliefs don't actually want this and the founders themselves acknowledge and are realistic about it. In that sense, the name of the movement is rather sensationalist.
I believe that some of the arguments on that page are supported by the notion that something can be good solely because it is natural, failing to acknowledge that the idealization of nature can...
I believe that some of the arguments on that page are supported by the notion that something can be good solely because it is natural, failing to acknowledge that the idealization of nature can only occur by selectively removing from view the numerous ways in which nature may shock our sensibilities with its senseless brutality.
I pose the question: why do we so easily assume the axiomatic majesty of nature as an universal, uncontroversial fact that warrants no discussion? Non-human nature certainly has a value, but it's not absolute. What kind of value is it, and in relation to what do we establish its worth?
That affirmation must not be understood as an irresponsible disregard for nature, but rather as an attempt to highlight the fact that it is not possible to dissociate our views about nature from our unique and inescapable human condition.
Sometimes I wonder, would nature be beautiful without being appreciate by something that can conceive beauty?
I feel unsure mentioning a logic fallacy in public. I assure everyone that I mean no harm. But I do believe there are instances of an appeal to nature in that webpage.
There is no "extinction", just removing yourself from the gene pool. I'd prefer those with good genes think hard on whether to pass them on, so we don't end up with a bunch of idiots who ruin the...
There is no "extinction", just removing yourself from the gene pool. I'd prefer those with good genes think hard on whether to pass them on, so we don't end up with a bunch of idiots who ruin the earth further down the line. I still support those who choose not to though, certainly we should end all social pressure to have children. We should also promote adopting to raise children already here. There's far too many orphans who need parents.
Instead of a population reduction movement, we should be looking to increase our density and an extremely long term goal of eventually moving the bulk of our population off-planet. With density comes efficiency and more natural land. So to start, getting cities to build/allow skyscrapers and mega-buildings that house many times the people, surround them with parkland and provide easy public transport between cities. With crops & fish grown year round indoors to reduce water, fertilizer, pesticides and herbicide. Maybe even start cities with density in mind, cities that are just one massive building.
Also move society to support scientists as much, if not more so, as it does celebrities and embrace technology more than it already does. I'm continually stunned at how much the USA, with all it's tech, is so far behind upgrading infrastructure and has so few people using new technology and methods. The suspiciously few who manufacture appliances and whatnot can't be helping. We also have companies worldwide milking old tech for all it's worth before implementing new, slowing down progress. If society discouraged such practices and encourages better tech adoption, maybe we can find a way to have lots of people AND a healthy planet a lot sooner as tech is churned out at a rapid pace.
Oh and I don't think capitalism has much place in the future. At some point every human job will be able to be done with no or minimal human intervention. At which point communism will be the best option. If no one has to work, why force them to? AI and Robots could provide everything you want for free. The only thing you'd have to give up on is owning land or more space than you need. Meanwhile you'd be free to do what excites you. Be it art, music, reading, wandering the world, playing games, sleeping, whatever floats your boat that doesn't harm others. Obviously I'm very against the "people need to work" mentality, that's just another capitalist myth to keep the population under their thumb, alongside being able to succeed if you work hard enough. With all our tech and massive increase in productivity in the last 100 years and here we are breaking our backs for peanuts that seem to lose their quality more every year. With all that productivity increase we ought to have seen some kind of decrease in how much work we need to do as wages go up, but most the benefits of increased productivity went to shareholders' pockets. At this point most of us are just slaves to corporate america, so much for the land of the free.
Anyway, I'd say we all need to stop imagining and start doing, but I'd be quite the hypocrite. I think there's a huge barrier to changing things, we may know what needs to be done, but lack knowledge, ability or time to do it. Take me, no way could I lead that as I'm far too introverted and no time to do more than rant online. :/
Damn, thoughts are all over today. I need better sleep, dagnabbit DST! 🤕
Since you asked for general opinions, I recently made a comment on Tildes about how raising a child takes a village. I pointed out that we don't really have villages anymore. Perhaps digital villages, but that means nothing when you're on day 6 of no sleep and your little one still has needs. Wife and I have one kid right now and plan on adding one more. But without any friends, family, or neighbors to help out, it's been pretty brutal at times.
Our one friend has a big family with plenty of kids and they all share the load. Wife and I (perhaps unfairly) get annoyed at the friend when she vents about how hard it is to raise a kid. She drops him off somewhere for free multiple days/nights per week and knows he's getting a ton of love and healthy interaction. Then she has other kids from the family over to hang out and he's getting attention from them. I wish we had that so bad sometimes. When my mother came from out of state for ONE DAY to help out, it was a huge relief.
Anyway, since that comment I have been thinking more about it. And I realized another factor is that lot of people probably just don't want to have kids. I have to guess a lot of people were having kids for social and religious reasons back in the day. It was just what you did, so people did it. Those pressures are gone. But there's also more to do these days and I think people feel that they have permission to go do it.
If you enjoy kayaking, you're free to go kayak every moment you're not working. Strap on a go-pro and you might even make some money off it. Nobody will judge you negatively, nobody thinks it's weird, travel is cheaper and easier than ever before, and the Internet has a database of everywhere you can kayak. Enjoy playing video games? Same deal.
There is so much more that you can do with your life now, and a lot of people are doing it.
I personally don't think there are a ton of people out there choosing to remain childless for philosophical or environmental reasons. If there were, we would also see massive changes in people's other consumption habits like driving and using plastic. Some people do make the changes, most do not.
You can always count on people, including me, to be fairly selfish in how they live their lives. If they want kids and it feels viable, they'll do it regardless of any deeper held beliefs about man's place in the world.
Just my two cents as a new parent!
I got into this debate here awhile back. While my reasons for not having children are many and varied, environmental is one of them, even if it's not at the top of the list. However, I do find this notion that someone that elects to be childfree should also have "massive changes in consumption habits" to go with it, to be odd. The mere act of not having children makes an individual environmentally leaps and bounds ahead of even the most eco-friendly person that elects to breed. Not having/using a car at all saves 2.4 tons CO2e/yr, having a child contributes 58.6 tons CO2e/yr. A childfree person can take thirty-six 6+ hour flights per year before they hit the breakeven point of emissions of someone that had a child.
Not to say that everyone shouldn't be trying to reduce their environmental impact, but simply not having a child is the single most eco-friendly thing anyone can do and it seems odd to require someone's environmental reasons to being childfree to also include "massive changes" in their other habits.
I'm calling this out. Here's the probable method for determining that.
So realistically, it's not 58.6 tons per year, because they're counting the burden of every theoretical future decendent. Which, I guess is OK if you're virtue-signalling or that you want the end of the human race, but is not really a 'fair' metric for 'doing your part' if you also concede that it would be best if it's more of a gradual decline and you don't want humanity to cease to exist....if that's your stance then climate change is kinda-sorta irrelevant because life without humans will continue with or without it. Especially, and this is important: It's more important to measure carbon footprint inside of 10 years than it is inside of 50. Sure, my kids may someday have kids, and they might have kids, and they'll all have carbon footprints...but most of this is all moot navel-gazing unless improvements happen now.
A more-reasonable metric would be "children are counted against society until children are self-sufficient." The childfree should bear some of that burden, given that I presume they'd still like to continue living in a functioning society and not picking berries and hunting each other for sport.
A child's burden in the USA, presuming for 20 years, is 320 tons. Which comes out to approximately 3.9ton/yr for replacement childbirth. Some math/reasoning explained in detail.
Assuming a child uses a full 16t/yr (they don't), and we count for 20 years before assuming their own burden. The parents should bear the majority of that burden. But since childfree people probably also wish to retire, say from 65 to 85, they should also assume some of that 'societal burden'
Right now numbers are showing about 1/6 adults over 55 are child-free, and that number is trending upward towards 1/5 (which matches what I see ancedotally around 40). We'll roll with 1/5 because the math is easier.
I think it's easiest to see this 'generationally' with a smaller group
100 adults, 80 are parents, 20 are child-free.
Assuming 80 parents have 80 kids that survive to old age, which kind of matches current birth rates. Some have more, some only 1, and some kids die.
320 tons of carbon per kid (16*20). 80 kids = 25,600 tons of carbon for their '20 years of rearing'. 100 adults, that's 25.6 tons per person. That's the 'lifetime carbon cost of living in a society that is not growing.'
Amortize that out over 65 years (because your own childhood isn't counted against you), 3.9 ton/yr.
Now, that 3.9 ton is for essentially pairs. If everybody stuck to 2 kids, population will trend downward reasonably courtesy of dead children.
I would say that it'd be fair to say you get penalized if you have more than replacement numbers of children. But even now, the large families are balanced by people only having 1 child per couple (already a 50% population reduction if everyone adhered), so I'd figure it's fair to impose a big-family-disincentive of roughly 0.3 ton/yr per additional child to each parent (it comes to about 4.2 ton if you don't factor the childfree). Which (somewhat surprisingly) puts in line with other things like 'hybrid instead of ICE'.
Sorry if the wording got convoluted there. So to recap, I'll try to be concise: Carbon footprint for children really shouldn't be counted unless it's above the replacement rate for society, because a slow drop in population is a much more desireable outcome to prevent total societal collapse. This comes out to be roughly in line with other 'carbon saving' measures.
It's a fair metric to put the weight of an individual's choices on them. Having children is a choice, the emissions those children cause is the price the person making the choice to breed must bear. The carbon cost of my lunch isn't shared across everyone in the building. It's not pooled risk, it's not insurance, it's a choice. A person should be responsible for their own actions. The child didn't ask to be born, the parents made the conscious decision to increase emissions by having the child.
A gradual decline in population guarantees humanity/society will also cease to exist as it won't be fast enough to actually reduce emissions enough to ensure that it can continue. Having children doesn't benefit society, it benefits the economy, the two are not the same thing.
Or since they're a choice, they're counted against the parents at least until they are self-sufficient. We've had this back and forth before. You think your kids are required for society/retirement, going so far as to say if your children are counted against your carbon budget, then you'll teach them not to help the childfree and I stated that's fine so long as all the taxes the childfree pay to house, clothe, educate, and feed children are kept by the childfree instead.
Is a newborn themselves putting out 16t/y? No, but until we have an actual, individual level measurement everyone gets the same count, so each parent gets half of the 16t their kid gets counted for or we recalculate to only count adults in the national average. And one's decision to breed is not the burden that others must bear just because someone doesn't like how it makes their own carbon emissions look.
Not having a child, at the very least, keep's one's emissions at a baseline when all should be reduced. Having a child will actively increase emissions be they attributed to the parents or not. In a world where everyone needs to be reducing emissions, having a child is the single worst thing the average person can do.
Carbon legacy matters. Having a child right now at best negatively impacts the environment to a measurable degree and quite possibly is ultimately a net negative for the world and society itself.
Following this train of thought, I don't have any responsibility for my actions, and my carbon footprint just counts against my parent's footprint. Theirs counts against their parents, and they don't care because they're long dead.
This is an excellent way to make people just stop caring at all.
You also don't apparently count for half your footprint to each parent, but your full footprint to each parent.
Which is why I think reducing people to numbers may work in the aggregate but isn't a useful way to make individual decisions.
You end up being Chidi on The Good Place - miserable and making everyone else around you the same while you calculate the difference in an ethical choice the way I try to figure out the best deal on soda at the store.
Yeah, but if society collapses, carbon emissions will too. /s
Meta comment: Are people labeling this as noise or why is it ranked below other answers?
If people are indeed labeling this as noise, why? IMO anyone trying to use the labeling system to 'demote' replies they don't like deserves to have their labeling privileges revoked.
This is one of the top sub-responses to me? Other responses are auto collapsed. It takes multiple people for a Noise label to impact visibility.
It feels a bit out there to hypothesize that people are labeling something a particular way, assume why they're doing it, and then tsk tsk at them for it. (I'd likely label this whole thread off topic)
It appears that way for me as well now.
Perhaps, but I've seen this several times since the influx and had never seen it previously. I think it's somewhat likely it's occurring and if it is it I would say it deserves a tsk tsk.
You're completely right. I suppose my point was that most people are probably not consciously choosing to avoid having children for environmental reasons. If they were, I think we would see a lot of other changes in behavior on a global scale to match that of the declining birthrates.
I am with you 100%. Maybe more, because I decided as a teen back in the 80's that the world had too many people, and there was nothing superior about my genes to support the damage done to the world by adding to the population. I figured if I ever felt desperate for children, it would make far more sense to adopt. (Which I never did.) The personal and financial benefits of not having children were afterthoughts, but definitely real. I do think about the environment and I do in fact try to make an impact in other ways--in my case by eating vegetarian and growing organically and supporting native ecosystems on my property. But there are many ways to try to make an impact, and even if all childless people who thought the environmental impact was a primary factor also were attempting to make other positive environmental impacts, those could be widely dispersed and hard to track.
Our first was born a few months after Covid started, so nothing was known and with a newborn you were 100 times more anxious and tried to keep everything safe. And while a ton of my relatives live close by, we couldn't have them help us due to that (and laws preventing it).
Our next one is due in a few months and you cannot believe how much I'm looking forward to not spend my parental leave indoors being scared. And always being able to call someone to help out. And to go wherever, whenever. And to my wife not having to be alone in the hospital during birth. It's going to be awesome.
Sorry for the semi-offtopic, but I felt like I needed to share this :)
Our only child's 5th birthday was canceled as the COVID lockdown started in March. Being an only was so hard those first months, we were doing everything we could think of to get her some safe human contact. I can't even imagine having to combine all the new parent worry with COVID worry and isolation. Glad you all made it through.
I remember a few years later, we were at the zoo. At the lion enclosure, there was a family with an older child and an ~2 year old. The younger one just sat and stared for so long, eventually the older one started complaining. She said, "Sweetie, give him some time. This is the first time he's ever seen a real lion." That really brought home to me how different those two years must have been for them.
My primary reason for not wanting to reproduce is that I find pregnancy horrifying. I'm apalled that we've done so little in terms of medical research to make it any less horrifying. I do think even if it was a walk in the park, I'd avoid it for environmental reasons, but you are right. The main reason I've never given birth is that I live in a time when I can choose not to give birth.
I'm so glad we live in a time when we can choose not to give birth. If we lived in other times, I likely would have been fully disabled or dead from bring pregnant and having to give birth.
I'm hoping with my new doctors, I'll be able to get a full hysterectomy now that I'm in my mid-30's. The gyn I had for years flat refused to approve a hysterectomy, even given my issues. I fired her and never got the chance to bring it up with my last gyn before my insurance changed.
In case you hit any more roadblocks (or if anyone else in here is looking) r/childfree keeps an updated list of (US) doctors (sorted by state) who will do hysterectomies on "younger" people (like, late 20s/early 30s, when it's reasonable to assume you have a pretty good idea what you're about). I chose one in my area somewhat at random and she was wonderful. No judgement, no "are you suurrreeee," kind and honest q&a beforehand, healing was a breeze, quick and complication-free. Best thing I've ever done for myself, no question. I hope you get yours soon!
Thank you! I'm working through my medical issues right now with my new insurance and this is one of those things that I don't know will happen right away. Unfortunately, I'm fairly overweight thanks to medications and chronic illness, so I was told I need to fix that first before other medically necessary procedures will be considered :/
I am in more or less the same situation. I will warn you, it is about 1.8x harder than with only one. It's a little easier because you know the mechanics of parenting now, but your attention is now fully divided, and you and your partner won't as easily be able to 'take turns' to get a parenting break.
I don't think you're being too judgy about people with support networks complaining about it being hard. I view it kind of like dog owners comparing caring for a dog like parenting. They just have no fucking clue how hard it really is. "Oh your mom ia providing free childcare for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week? If I hand my baby to my mother, it gets shook."
It's starting to get better now that we're embedding in the comminity, but it still feels a weird ask to be like 'Wanna swap babysitting duty 2x a week so that we can live without our kids for 3 hours without paying $120? We'd like to see Dune P2."
Hilarious because my wife and I are (in effect) paying someone $140 to watch our son next Friday so we can see Dune part 2.
To be more specific, our daycare is unavailable next week but we still have to pay her the $140/week minimum. She is available to take our son Friday so we are sneaking off to see Dune for both of our birthday presents to each other. So yeah, in effect I'm paying $140 for a single day of daycare to see the exact movie you mentioned lol.
We also just paid around that much (w/ movie tickets) to go see Dune p2 last week. I never thought I'd be thrilled to spend over $100 to go see a movie but it was actually great. :)
Depending on how far "back in the day" we're talking... Children were your pension fund. Also, birth control wasn't nearly as effective or widely available.
Children are still kind of a pension fund, aren't they? Both immediately (ideally, I die surrounded by descendants that care for me in my dotage) and societally (who's paying the pensions in Japan if trends continue as they are?).
Not in the same sense as in the past, when a lot of people had no savings and there was no legal obligation for the state to take care of you. You might not die, as the local community might take pity on you (I've heard stories from relatively modern times of how the families in a village would take turns caring for a disabled or elderly person with no living relatives, a few weeks or couple of months at each home), or maybe a religious charity might take you in or something, but relying on charity is a Plan C at best. The economic incentive isn't nearly as strong today.
My general point being that I don't think people of the past had children just because it's "just what you did". There were some very pragmatic reasons why. Today, between state programs and private pensions, most people (in developed countries at least) don't have the economic imperative of knowing that they either become essentially a beggar, a charity case, or they literally just die when they're no longer able to work enough to support themselves.
I'm reminded of a blog post I read from a medieval historian. I wasn't able to find it right now but I think it came from this blog. Essentially it was about whether medieval peasants saved the excess from good harvests as a rainy day fund for bad years. And the answer was generally, no. Food itself was too perishable - a good harvest now won't save you from a famine in five years. And you could sell food and save money, but if your area is hit by a famine, there might not be anyone willing and able to sell you food. And you can't eat gold or silver. So instead, what they did was invest in social capital. They might blow the excess food from a good harvest on a seemingly wasteful feast for their friends and neighbors. But sharing the good times ensured that in the bad times, they had goodwill, which was more valuable than money in a lot of circumstances.
Children are social capital. Children are goodwill. But in modern times, between "unearned" rights guaranteed by the state (which is not to say undeserved, merely that they are rights granted by default, not as a result of your personal actions) and cold hard cash, the necessity of goodwill has been reduced. It's still nice to have a loving family, but the reasons are more emotional than economic now.
I do think there are an increasing number of people who factor environmental concerns into their choice not to have kids these days, even if it's not their primary reason. I also think you're right though that a much more significant part is that the stigma of not having children is increasingly getting cast aside, which is great to see. Thanks for weighing in and I hope the childcare situation gets easier!
I've read my fair shair of philosophical pessimists, so I'm not a stranger to the idea of anti-natalism. It predates the concerns regarding climate change, and there are some criticisms I think that apply to all anti-natalist movements.
First and foremost, it has no possibility of working. Human species have very strong instincts regarding living and the continuance of future generations that anti-natalist movements will never succeed. Anti-natalists are a very minor exception to this.
Second, anti-natalist philosophy is inherently depressing. The value of human life, of your own and at the very least of some other humans, is a vital part of human psyche, and I don't think a philosophy that seeks its destruction can bring happiness. This is why I think all the anti-natalists I've met and seen were depressed, and why this particular philosophy interested me the most when I was more susceptible to depressive modes of thinking. I recognize that there might be exceptions to this, but I haven't seen it. And from what I see, r/antinatalism is a very good example of how intertwined this philosophy is with depressive modes of thinking. I think it feeds on depressive modes of thinking, and it reinforces them.
For these reasons, I think all this movement does is ultimately be a failure while reinforcing the depressive modes of thinking in some sensitive people, resulting in making the world more unhappy while not accomplishing anything.
There are some other objections I have as well.
This is genocide on the species level. It's the final solution to an entire species. I don't see how this can be reconciled with an empathetic approach. I think, when anti-natalism is taken to its logical conclusions, its proponents should rejoice for every murder and genocide, because they lessen the impact of humanity on the planet.
As u/RNG pointed out, this movement is built on the assumption that climate crisis and other ecological crises aren't fixable. That a better life isn't possible. This is fatalistic, and it undermines these cases, because it assumes they will fail. Hence the final solution. Therefore, they work to reinforce reactionary forces.
On another, more philosophical point, I have certain opinions about nature that probably run counter to that of most people. Nature is extremely cruel, it commits countless massacres in a single area in a single day. This has been ongoing for billions of years, and for animals for hundreds of millions of years. The insect taxon alone commits more cruelties in a year than humans have ever committed. Darwin once wrote the following about this topic.
"With respect to the theological view of the question; this is always painful to me.— I am bewildered.— I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see, as plainly as others do, & as I should wish to do, evidence of design & beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice."
From this point of view, I don't see why we should get to be special as to be the only species that should be wiped out. Nature is already extremely cruel. If the intent is to destroy suffering, why not wipe out all species? If there is no life, there is no suffering. I think anti-natalist philosophies have a deficiency in confronting this.
One can counter-argue that it's not ultimately about some results-focused approach, but that it's about responsibility about our own impact on life around us. I have two counters to this.
First, again, why should we be so special to be the only species that is responsible? If we are operating from a non-human-centric point of view, we shouldn't treat ourselves too differently. We have some thinking capabilities, yes, but we are still beholden to the same desires and rights the other animals have. The same right to life.
Second, if it's about our own impact, why endorse an ultimately futile movement of which only outcome is making some people more unhappy? If it's about personal responsibility as a species, isn't it better to reform the civilization to be in better harmony with the world, rather than insisting on some movement that will never come to pass? After all, this will decrease the impacts more.
Furthermore, on the philosophical side, if it comes down to it, I will choose human life. While I do value other life forms, and I do not think there is a hard reason we can't live in a sustainable world, I do not share the view that we are an intrusion on nature. Nature is already chaotic, ugly, full of misery, and so scarce of resources and full of competition. There have been multiple global extinction events due to nature, and countless local extinctions. Over 99% of species that ever lived are extinct. The romanticized version of balance does not exist. As a result, I think every species has a right to destruction, to some extent, because that is life. This is an ugly truth I'm comfortable living with.
Finally, there are some very complex questions about this issue. Who decides that biodiversity is good? After all, while humanity destroys and hurts a lot of species, some others thrive. For example, humans pollute freshwaters and kill some species, while some algal species thrive in these conditions (e.g. algal blooms). In another example, while some native species are hurt by human activities, some other invasives thrive. Ultimately, when are gone, and we will be gone one day, these niches will be filled, one way or another. Some millions of years isn't really a problem on the evolutionary scale. We will never destroy all life on Earth. So, why be concerned about some long-term (in the evolutionary sense) "balance"?
From this point of view, in that time-frame, what we do won't matter. But what we do here and now does matter. While life will definitely find a way in the long run, it doesn't change the fact that there are very much preventable damages we are doing to other species. A lot of existing suffering we can alleviate. Anti-natalistic ideologies and movements don't help with this, because they will never succeed, and they undermine the rhetoric of movements that actually seek to transform societies to be more egalitarian.
If anything, antinatalism seems complementary to any egalitarian movement. As a form of protest, it seems pretty effective to say that you refuse to generate more "human resources" - to not create any more exploitable labor, future consumers. The best labor conditions have always been when human labor was valuable and scarce, like post black-plague. Just consider it a balancing force, proof that humans won't get used to anything. Quite an optimistic way of looking at things.
Also philosophically, it has been mostly assumed that humans have a unique capacity for suffering as a result of their intelligence. Maybe it's intuition, but intelligence and biology seems to determine a capacity for suffering- and a human can mourn more than a fly. I see the contradiction, but I think it can easily be mentally sidestepped in multiple ways. Perhaps people simply don't want to be responsible for suffering on a personal level.
I understand and agree with what you said but should clarify regardless, anti-natalism rejects childbearing regardless of the socioeconomic status and future prospects of the world.
And yes I would be very mentally disturbed if I had voluntarily taken part in conception of a human being. I think I would be a better parent than the average , bar is really low nowadays , but nothing is perfect and there were literally no reason for that child to come into existence.
Not true. The current labor conditions are better than the times of post-black death. This is not a law, but a contributing factor to a multifactorial problem.
VHEMT is not anti-natalism, they do have overlapping areas but should not be examined in the same sentence.
There is no anti-natalism movement either ( There was a group doing some advertising years ago but insignificant ), it is a self-contained philosophy. Meaning you can not enforce it beyond personal level.
I agree that very nature of this kind of thinking process is extremely depressing but you really don't have to dismantle the value of human life or anything like that.
The only basic logic you need to run on is that all sentient lives ,some people include animals as well, are capable of suffering without an ability to consent to becoming into existence in the first place. So a conscious person may decide against childbearing of their own.
This does not mean life itself shall not be cherished, it is actually quite the opposite. Since you only have one life, you should live it to your content as much as possible ( Some anti-natalists go straight into machiavellianist thoughts from here ).
As for r/antinatalism , I don't want to sound like a gatekeeper but that sub started to flood with depressed doomers and environment obsessed people ( like VHEMT here ) after it gone above 30K members, I stopped browsing after that. I also come across some eugenics rhetorics as well which is absolutely unacceptable. ( Stuff like only trying to apply anti-natalism if those parents are disabled etc.)
The main reason I firmly reject this people is because they may not agree with the core principle of the philosophy so they may just go ahead into procrastination if their economic/social life improves which are completely irrelevant to anti-natalism.
Quoting from their page.
"As VHEMT Volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens... us.
[...]
It’s going to take all of us going."
This is very much a strain of anti-natalism.
VHEMT is one, and there have been strains of anti-natalistic thought for some time now. David Benatar fans and such are some examples. It's not a very organized movement, but it still exists. I'm using the word movement not in the narrow sense of competing for elections and such, but in the broader sense, such as 19th century German pessimists also being a movement of philosophy. In this manner, anti-natalism is a philosophical movement regarding the ethics of life.
The rest of your message is interesting, but replying in a thorough manner would take too much time and effort for me. So I will have to not engage. But I do want to say that I think anti-natalist philosophers have a much better grasp on their philosophy than the members of r/antinatalism. I've actually read quite a fair amount of anti-natalist philosophy, and the impression I got from them was very different from that subreddit. But the depressive modes of thinking stayed similar in both, and I think for that reason that subreddit is a good example of what anti-natalist philosophy looks like in mass action. The intellectualized layers get peeled off, and what remains is the depressive modes of thinking in their bare form.
Thank you, I enjoyed this breakdown. The parts that stick out to me the most are some very common, reflexive misunderstandings.
A couple of other points that I found particularly interesting:
This is an especially interesting one. I guess the main issue is that if you don't have biodiversity, you have a monoculture. I can't think of anything off the top of my head that can sustainably exist as a monoculture. Biodiversity is necessary for the continuation of life more generally, so I guess that opens up another complex question of who decides that the continuation of life is good? Whether it's good or bad, I don't think the cessation of all life is something that any of us particularly want.
Thank you for the kind response.
I first want to make it clear that I don't think you are a proponent of fascism. I think everyone, including myself, suffer from certain blindspots in our reasoning that lead us to defend some ideas that conflict with our deeper values. This is my biggest fundamental criticism of anti-natalist philosophies. You say less human life, yet the page you linked has the following to say.
This is not simply fewer humans. It's the genocide of the whole human species. It's anti-natalism.
So, that's the part I think that conflicts with the more egalitarian part. If it comes from caring about other humans, then why advocate for genocide/extinction of the species? If it doesn't come from a place of caring for other humans, then why not advocate for violence?
I'm saying this, by the way, as a person who's not planning to have children. So I'm not taking personal offense in that part. And I'm also aware that for people in developed countries, the best thing they could do right now to reduce their carbon footprint is to have fewer children. But making sacrifices for the collective future is different than proposing the destruction of its entire future.
That's the thing. Vast majority of humanity doesn't contribute much to this. For example, carbon emissions of richest 1 percent are more than double the emissions of the poorest half of humanity. And we already produce enough food to feed more than 10 billion people, yet over 2.4 billion people are food insecure, while 43% of the adult population of the world was overweight and 16% were obese in 2022. These I think are some basic facts about the world that demonstrate my point: it's not about the amount of population, it's about the inequality and inefficiency of the current socioeconomic and political systems.
Thanks for the thoughtful response and I'm very relieved that the non-facist feeling is coming across to you, haha.
I fully understand why you take objection to this bit. Somewhere else on the website it's clarified that this is because it would be the only way to ensure that the problems humans are causing today are not repeated (at least, not by us). As much as they emphasise elsewhere that they're realistic and they don't really expect this to happen, it's also probably one bit of reasoning I disagree with on a personal level.
As much as we do seem to be repeating a lot of past mistakes and regressing in some areas politically at the moment, I think humans have shown they have the capacity to learn. I'm optimistic enough, perhaps foolishly so, to believe that we can collectively realise that 8 billion of us was not the best idea and build a society where we all have the freedom to choose to procreate responsibly. As someone else mentioned, our ability to co-operate is a huge advantage.
I guess why should they advocate for violence? This has a similar energy to "if you don't believe in God/ the bible then how do you know right from wrong?". The idea of living long and dying out pretty tacitly implies that they believe the winning strategy is for people to carry out the rest of their natural lifespan without passing on the baton. Most VHEMT volunteers do care about other humans and still have loved ones, friends, neighbours. They can still contribute to charities or serve their communities. Even if they didn't particularly care about other humans, most people don't want to resort to violence. It hurts other people and causes anguish, distress and suffering. They want fewer people but they're still capable of empathy.
Apologies, you might have misunderstood what I meant by this and I'm actually in agreement with you here but coming from a different angle. You're absolutely right that the majority of carbon emissions are being created by a select few at the top, including corporations that we are pretty much all forced to engage with unless we give up on participating in society and go back to living in caves. You're also right about food insecurity and the unequal distribution of food, water, etc. which is unfortunately a feature and not a bug.
Those things are bad enough, but it's also our social care networks (mental health, healthcare generally, welfare for the vulnerable, support for low income people and parents) that haven't scaled. It's intensely infuriating that they could be, (if only we would co-operate more!) but they aren't. If humans aren't prepared to co-operate to the level that things can be made fairer and more equitable for everyone, then is making less of "everyone" by refusing to chuck more people into the system and scaling things back down such a terrible idea?
I enjoyed your comment, and would maybe suggest one thing. I think life enjoys itself in all its forms. Sidestepping questions of sapience, sentience, capacity for suffering, etc, life generally seeks to sustain itself, not just at the species propagation level, but in many cases, at the individual level.
This feeds into my general philosophy of trying to live a life that reduces suffering, in a better, not perfect way.
I think, where possible and practicable, we, individually and collectively should avoid causing the suffering of other creatures, humans included. I don't think that past extinction events being a reality should change the moral landscape of minimizing suffering. So while I reject the argument that it would be better for humans to die out in the name of biodiversity, I do think that a well developed moral agent will also recognize the value in minimizing harm as at least a first amongst equal set of constraints in making both moral and practical determinations.
I very much agree with minimizing harm when possible, but I also think that implementing this as an absolute ethical principle would lead to a lot of reductions in life quality for humans. For example, even the act of creating living spaces for ourselves necessitates cutting down some areas. I think, to a degree, acts such as this are acceptable. That's what I meant by right to destruction.
The mentality I follow can be likened to some thoughts of earlier humans, where they recognized nature's preciousness but also of its cruel necessities. So they very much normalized killing animals and such, and saw this as "natural", but also still respected other life forms when possible. This is not to say I think animal industry as it is should continue, but to illustrate a point about the similarity between my right to destruction idea due to limitations in nature, and a similar attitude in earlier humans.
Maximizing or minimizing on a single axis generally leads to poor outcomes, which is why I couched things in terms of what is practicable, and described the minimization of suffering as being a "first amongst peer" constraints.
Life generally doesn't allow for no suffering. Even sidestepping the original question of human-nature interactions, minimizing human suffering as an absolute maxim would lead to problems. For example, balancing suffering against individual agency, i.e., curbing individual freedoms to keep individuals from harming themselves. Then it becomes, how do we minimize suffering while maximizing agency, and what is the right balance. And then as you add additional constraints, the problem becomes more nuanced.
Going back to the question of nature, there is a point where the "marginal utility" of humans consuming a unit resource is small relative to the harm to nature, e.g., biodiversity, pollution, etc. Much of the harm to our planets environment, as well as the taking of resources from future human generations, is somewhere in that gray area of diminishing marginal utility.
Succinctly put. I think anti-natalism is an extreme example of this maximization/minimization problem, where the suffering of other life forms due to human activies is tried to be minimized without considering other angles. It suffers from hyperfocusing on a single problem without considering the surrounding context.
Let's set aside that this seems to be pure distilled eco-fascism for a minute.
This seems self-defeating. Inevitably most people will won't join; just people who are conscientious enough to join such a movement, who will be less represented within a generation.
I'm deeply moved by climate and environmental issues, and view groups like this as worse than ineffective. They basically concede the neoliberal rhetoric that it isn't possible for humanity to meaningfullly coexist with nature.
Also, if one truly believes that humans cannot fundamentally coexist with nature, why should their extinction be "voluntary"? Exterminators don't get consent from the pests they remove. It seems that if one is truly committed to these ideals, then all manner of atrocities can be justified (and often are by eco fascist thinkers.)
On the other hand, if one views human inviability and intrinsic worth as so paramount that they think consent is required for a fundamentally destructive species to be exterminated then it's hard to square that with their goal of species eradication.
Either nature is more important than human inviability or it isn't; they cannot have it both ways. And to concede that we can't have both harms environmental progress.
There was a religious group called Shakers, loosely related to Quakers which is the religion I was raised with. Shakers believed, and I don’t quite understand this chain of logic, that in heaven there is no sex or carnal pleasure and thus sex is not godly and should not be performed on earth (just trying to recall what my parents told me). They adopted a lot of children but unsurprisingly they died out. They did however become excellent woodworkers with all their free time.
There’s a reason religions often mandate proliferation through children, coerced marriages, and banning divorces. It is one of the strongest ways to ensure memetic success. Any meme that includes dying childless is going to be short lived.
I think you're overcomplicating the argument. For the record, I don't agree with the VHEMT, but I can see what they're saying.
Perhaps look at like this: A king feels that his right to rule hinges upon his ability to protect his people and take care of them. Upon failing this in some major way, he abdicates the throne and says he has not lived up to his responsibilities, thus does not deserve to rule.
There can be no doubt that humans are different from the other animals in our world. People can debate the differences, but our superior intelligence is at least one we can all agree on. It has given us a lot of power over the world around us. And like the king in my example, many think we have abused this power or, more accurately, that our species is fundamentally non-viable in a world of limited resources and delicate balancing acts.
In it's most basic form, the VHEMT seems to be saying that we should voluntarily abdicate our throne. I'm not sure that making the movement voluntary says anything super unique about the importance of human consent. Basically, they don't want to commit violent genocide but think humans have the ability to see that they are incompatible with a balanced ecosystem.
Anyway, in my view, all animals are "selfish" and only held back by limitations which are out of their control. I think any animal with a mutation which granted high-intelligence would be pretty similar to humans. If you look at nature, it's all competition, all the time. In fact, humans may be the only hope at life moving past that stage. I also happen to think existence is a gift and that we can solve our problems with science. I'm hopeful for our future in the long term.
I think my central criticisms still stand.
1. They completely concede the environmental movement.
This adopts a tactic common in eco-fascism of reframing the central conflict between those who profit from environmental destruction and workers/consumers to being a conflict between humanity and nature. This concedes the entire environmental movement, and abandons attempts to make progress on the actually existing conflict.
2. They make mutually exclusive value judgements
Here is my attempt at a consistent view:
In my value system, nature is worth preserving for the benefit of humanity. Natural selection and life itself is especially adaptive; over incomprehensible periods of time nature will adapt to whatever changes we made to this planet during our comparatively short time. Life and nature do not need our buy-in to continue to exist. The environment and ecosystem should be protected because this is the state of nature where humanity flourishes. Extant species should be preserved because we may not know what benefits they bring (pharmacological, ecological, etc.) Extinction is a natural process: Earth can adapt and life can still flourish in conditions where humans cannot. In a sentence: nature is important because humans are important.
The inconsistency in VHEMT:
This movement seems to seesaw between value judgements on humanity and nature. If nature is truly more valuable than humanity, then it wouldn't be necessary to desire the consensual extermination of humanity. If it is actually true that nature is more valuable than humanity, then one should use any tool at their disposal towards that end. If however humanity is more valuable than nature, or nature's value is contingent on its utility for humanity, then framing human extinction as a moral good is incoherent.
3. Its premises include non-factual eco-fascist claims and rhetoric
We are not having an overpopulation crisis, this has been debunked time and time again, yet remains the principle complaint of both eco-fascists and apparently VHEMT. We currently produce far more food than needed to feed the entire world, and could produce far more than we do. This reframes conflicts centered on global inequality as merely a consequence of overpopulation.
Reframing the issues of global markets in profiting from pollution/environmental destruction and food/wealth inequality as instead fundamental problems with humanity itself does more to exacerbate the problem than it does to alleviate it.
Again, I'm not myself a member of the VHEMT, I don't agree with them at all, I think their movement will die out, etc. But I feel I have to stand up for them a bit in the face of your argument.
You're insisting on a violent form of utilitarianism where none is necessary. In their ideal world, humans voluntarily choose to reduce their numbers or even extinct themselves entirely. Because humans have limited lifespans, there is no need for violent genocide or cruelty in this worldview.
If we took your argument and applied it to eating meat, then should all meat eaters relish the idea of tightly-packed rows of cattle being slaughtered in the most efficient way, no matter how cruel? Why do so many people opt for free-range chicken and buy meat that claims to be cruelty free? Of course it's not actually free of any suffering, but the attempt demonstrates that people can have a desire for compassion while dealing with death and nature.
I also find your views on insect eradication interesting (and again, violently utilitarian). Personally, I do feel bad when I exterminate insects and other "pests." I try to avoid it wherever possible and I feel genuine remorse when I have to do it. I'll try other means first and would easily use non-lethal methods if/when available.
Sure, until we have a better way, the outcome may be the same for the chipmunk in my wall, and you could argue that it's just needless hand-wringing, but I think there is value in seeking other solutions and only reluctantly engaging in the killing of other animals. It's one of the things I like most about humans. Our ability to reason and empathize, to avoid cruelty, is very beautiful to me. Without this reluctance, I don't think we would have as many meat alternatives in the works as we do now. Avoiding cruelty and killing is definitely a huge driving force behind lab-grown meat and impossible burgers.
Apologies in advance if this comment gets too sci-fi but we're already deep into hypotheticals and philosophizing.
Let's consider these two assumptions:
There's nothing special about human selfishness. If in millions of years other species advanced to our stage they'd be just as catastrophic to the environment. This is impossible to prove but given what we've observed in nature (no species checks itself, famine and other catastrophes or feedback loops do it for them) and that any earthen species will follow the same path of competition etc that humans did, I don't think it's such a wild assumption.
A technologically advanced civilization (one more advanced than our current one) is the only way life on this solar system survives major catastrophes.
Then it only follows that humans voluntarily "abdicating" their position and going extinct is actually counter-productive for the long-term survival of life. Life which, while we speculate can exist elsewhere, has never been proven to.
Or more playfully put, when the asteroid comes you want humans to science up some Bruce Willis shit (or at the very least dig some bunkers and fauna/flora vaults) and punch it in the face; you won't be looking to cows to save the only known instance of life in the universe. When the sun explodes you want to be grazing in some off-world colony or space habitat, not getting vaporized on this doomed hunk of rock.
This is very likely true but represents an unlikely hypothetical situation. In our present reality, we don't have to worry about the looming threat of Gary Larson's cow tools and we are the only species having an impact of this magnitude as well as the level of consciousness and reasoning to do something to change it.
I don't really think that's correct. There hasn't been any mass extinction event previously which has ended 100% of life on earth. Certainly there have been times that it's come close; I think the Permian extinction did something mad like 80% - 90% of known life, but there have always been survivors to cling on, adapt and fill the niches.
Major catastrophes on the level that you describe tend to be a pretty brutal and unpleasant time for everyone involved though. If it were coming about as a result of something entirely out of our hands then I think it would be an easier pill to swallow in some ways, although it would still be human nature to try and work towards a solution (punching the asteroid in the face). But it's nothing as high octane and Bruce Willis-y as an asteroid, it's a slow, insidious temperature creep that we've had a very significant hand in accelerating.
In about a billion years or so the Sun will have gotten hot enough to bake all life off Earth, and then it will swallow Earth within about 5 billion years. Without intelligent intervention those are the hard limits for life on Earth.
However, intelligent life is capable of preserving nature beyond that point not only by colonizing other star systems, bringing life with them wherever they go, but also by extending the Sun's life far beyond its natural limits.
That's a fair point, but we can still work together to figure that out with fewer people. In fact, we might stand a better chance of working it out if the overwhelming majority of our population is well educated, well fed and not competing for resources (I acknowledge that some of that competition is currently being driven by artificial scarcity). Those conditions sound like they would encourage people to be more co-operative.
We could probably meet everyone's basic needs right now but the sad fact is that we are not, and there's still the big question of whether that would be a good thing for everything else living on earth given our large numbers. If resources aren't going to be scaled up to meet everybody's needs then it seems like the next best thing is to scale ourselves down.
The sad fact is that we are not experiencing a shortage of resources to support the current population, or even the much expanded future populations. We are experiencing a shortage of distribution of resources.
Working out major interstellar-scale megastructures would be easier if everyone is educated, well fed, etc., but that doesn't require there be less of us.
Last point: if you have two groups, one is pro-growth and the other is anti-growth, eventually no matter how small a minority the pro-growth group start out as, eventually it will be the majority. Even if you could convince 99.9% of all humans to reduce the population by not having kids, the remaining .1% would eventually become a pro-growth majority again. For that reason alone voluntary extinction will never amount to more than a drop in the ocean. Add to that the fact that you'll never convince a notable minority of people, let alone a majority, to reduce the population. And then add to that the fact that the people most likely to cooperate in a population reduction effort are also the people most likely to cooperate for the good of humankind in some other, more productive way. Instead of ridding the Earth of humans willing to cooperate, I recommend trying to influence the world by making as many cooperators as possible in the hopes of vastly outnumbering the people who selfishly cause artificial shortages.
And yet, more people are choosing not to have children. Many of them without believing in or being aware of VHEMT and having other motivations. Even if they aren't part of the movement, it's considered a success every time somebody chooses not to reproduce.
True it's unlikely that the majority of people will ever be convinced of this school of thought, but it's being reported that the birth rate is dropping across the world anyway. I am only sorry that some of it will be for sadder reasons (i.e. people not being able to afford it), but as someone else pointed out earlier there are some good ones too, like a reduction in the stigma of being childless/ childfree.
I don't think that's the aim. Of course we want people to co-operate, that's how problems get solved. It seems rather wasteful to just keep churning out new people when we could also be trying to make more co-operators of our existing population too. It's like that Stephen Jay Gould quote:
“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”
We probably already have the next generation of big problem solvers here, I dread to think how many of them aren't realising their potential because of this inability (or more accurately, unwillingness by a select few) to distribute our resources sensibly. It's a stupid game and I increasingly feel like the only way to win is not to play.
We can have fewer people AND more teamwork, and in fact that's the gold standard outcome I'd like to see.
If it's genuinely believed that nature > humanity, one should be advocating for nuclear war, as nature will almost certainly recover after a few thousand years, but humanity will be gone. Kinda like chemo for the cancer of human society.
This is why this belief is used by eco-fascists to organize. Nuclear war, mass sterilization, genocide; little is off the table.
However nothing humans are doing today is threatening life or nature in general. Life will adapt and potentially flourish millions of years from now. What we are doing is making life less livable for humans. We need extant species to survive, we need contemporary ecosystems to continue existing. Life, more broadly, does not. There will be new species and new ecosystems that will develop long after humanity is gone. If one values nature more than people then there's really no reason to be concerned about the current state of affairs at all.
Value judgements eh? I've always believed that the individual frame of reference was the default. With the framing of self-interest, consistency in terms of value judgements is trivial. I would say that people value (the rest of) humanity because it is provides a greater psychological or material benefit to them than "nature". In this case, the idea of consent seems to be the most in their interest. Nature is secondary. The intrinsic value of anything does not necessarily play into it.
Eco-fascism does not value consent. I also think you dismiss the overpopulation argument too easily. It's been a long time, and there's still no answer to the very repugnant conclusion.
I don't know how one can value the consent of a being that they find has little to no intrinsic worth. There are many bugs that I kill by the thousands because their existence is a minor inconvenience to me. The only way I'd care about a bug's consent would be if I held the belief that bugs have much higher worth than I currently believe that they do.
I think the original comment under #3 addresses the overpopulation argument well. We don't have an overpopulation problem, and we have far more resources than required to meet the needs of everyone multiple times over.
Valuing consent is the pragmatic thing to do. If you want to have your autonomy respected, it seems like making sure you respect the autonomy of others is in your self-interest. I know I said something somewhat contradictory earlier, but I don't really think it's that unlikely that they believe consent has intrinsic worth that outweighs nature as well. Voluntary is in their name, after all.
I don't think the fact that humans haven't reached carrying capacity is an answer to the question of overpopulation, because it simply assumes that the carrying capacity is the optimal population. All that means is that we are far from starving if food was effectively distributed, but it doesn't mean the population has not exceeded the optimal number that takes into account factors such as sustainability and standard of living. It is probable, but still not clear if society has exceeded the population that maximizes the standard of living possible.
The very repugnant conclusion simply shows that it is difficult to determine this optimal population.
Yes, but this project is inherently selfless; it seeks to end humanity in service of "nature." Unless they think a consensual approach is the most effective means to achieving this end (a claim which seems very unlikely), its hard to see why they'd care about the interests of oneself or of others in their pursuit of this higher-order good of eliminating humanity.
I'd assume they don't care about the consent of bugs to be exterminated, or even of pets to be put down when needed, so what is it about human consent that makes it so intrinsically important that it even outweighs "saving nature?" And since "saving nature" is even more important than humanity itself, we get a value hierarchy like this:
Perhaps that could avoid my worry that their values are internally incoherent, but it is somehow even more baffling than if it were merely logically flawed.
Funny. I've always thought of it as exactly the reason the movement has never caught on. That the order of their values are too unconventional (the same would be true for most other fringe groups). I suspect it's just how they are as a person. That's why I don't believe in their selflessness, and recognize it as simply ego. Service of nature in turn serves themselves.
This viewpoint feels fairly adjacent to another question that comes up a lot: "if you believe it so much, why don't you just kill yourself then?". The majority of people that believe in VHEMT aren't edgelords baying for world wars and nuclear fallout. In fact, a large number of them (myself included) don't even want total extinction of the species, just a much, much lower and more sustainable population.
The connection often gets drawn that because we want less human life, we also don't particularly value it but in my experience it's just not true. There doesn't have to be a conceding of the idea that humans can coexist with nature, despite initial appearances these aren't conflicting ideals. I just think that in order to successfully do that, we need to start downsizing. Obliterating everyone in the space of a few seconds would be an incredibly wasteful way to do that and possibly involve more severe casulaties to the flora and fauna around us; I'd much rather that birth rates gradually declined and adoption rates increased so that everybody who's here can enjoy a higher standard of living.
The motto is "may we live long and die out" for a reason. :)
You seem to have good intentions and are operating in good faith, but I should let you know this is pure distilled eco-fascism.
Not the person you're responding too, but I think attempting to associate 'lower population is desirable and good for the environment' as the defining characteristic of eco-fascism comes off as reductionist. By way of analogy to normal fascism, this is akin to saying 'nationalism is distilled fascism' during a discussion about how some people want nation states. You can have a reasoned disagreement about nationalism, and even bring up fascism as an example of its ills, without trying to equate the two. For the topic at hand, disagreeing about whether population reduction is good or bad (as you've well argued elsewhere) is fine, but I think trying to pin any group who shares the goal of population reduction to eco-fascism is painting with too broad a brush. Intentions, values, and proposed means matter when it comes to what a movement will actually do, so not every group which shares a part of ecofascism's goals is necessarily worthy of being labeled under that banner. In particular, I think that VHEMT don't share ecofascism's ultra nationalist, anti-immigration, totalitarian efforts to commit genocide which seems like the important criteria for being labeled as such.
That's not the claim I'm making. I'll try to restate this another way. Eco-fascism makes two central claims:
There is a current overpopulation crisis, and this crisis is what's responsible for the environmental destruction we see today
The only way to stop this environmental destruction is to solve problem #1
Neither of these claims are true. And I think a fair bit of skepticism is warranted whenever any group "shares the goal of population reduction." I get that VHEMT disagrees on the means, but if I can get you to adopt this specific world-view, moving to eco-fascism isn't really that big a stretch any longer, especially when the inadequacy of anti-natalism in solving this becomes clear.
(Also, minor nit, but I don't view nationalism to be a necessary component of eco-fascism, although it is commonly associated with it.)
I'm not trying to assert that these claims are true. I personally agree that they are false! I support most of your arguments made elsewhere.
Absolutely, your skepticism is warranted. Different ideologies are more or less susceptible to various immoral/violent behaviors and antinatalism is more susceptible than most. But ecofascism requires extra characteristics of violence and oppression which those claims alone don't necessitate, especially if they're only weakly held by most members. There's a careful balance to be had between persuading people away from potential treadmills to fascism while still not alienating them by jumping to call everything along that pathway fascism. I think your earlier comment strayed enough into lumping antinatalism for environmental reasons into ecofascism such that I wanted to comment.
This is where I'd most disagree - I think there's a pretty big gap between voluntarily choosing not to have kids and being willing to commit/permit genocide or other oppressive behaviors. I'd also wager that most people who make that jump are doing so not out of any logical conclusion of the core tenets but primarily due to other factors, factors which might arise across all sorts of ideologies. To some degree I'd rather focus on those factors - fatalism, sense of powerlessness, in vs out group thinking, dogmatic adherence - than on whether some tenets share more or less with ecofascism. I think if you removed antinatalism something like ecofascism could still arise just under a different set of tenets (eg. "western countries have their pollution under control, its all those /other/ countries who are causing harm, so let's all go hate on them.") as long as those other factors persist.
You've said that a few times, but having heard what the spokespeople have to say I'm just not totally convinced of that argument. The language you've used in your discussion implies that you might not have read much of the source material - which I can't necessarily blame you for! In the same way, I'm confident that neo nazi ideology is thoroughly abhorrent and I know that sitting through a screening of Europa isn't going to change my mind, so I wouldn't bother indulging anyone who thought otherwise (though in fairness I think you're less likely to encounter someone operating in good faith there).
At the very least I can say that the people behind VHEMT are well aware that the movement has almost zero chance of succeeding at the rather reductionist end goal of 0 people:
A lot of them don't even really want that:
They welcome people who have already had children and make a conscious choice not to have more:
A primary interest is in reducing net suffering, which they believe they can do by making fewer new lives:
Do eco-facists exist within and co-opt the movement for their own benefit? Probably. However, I don't think they represent the majority and the people that coined the name for the movement are fairly explicit about their ethos. If there's anything out there that suggests otherwise though, I'd want to know about it. I'm not precious about labels and wouldn't hesitate to drop VHEMT while maintaining my own beliefs.
Concisely defining eco-fascism, much like defining fascism itself, is a difficult task. One of the primary characteristics of eco-fascism is the insistence in an alleged population crisis that is destroying nature; a problem for which the only solution is a sharp depopulation of the planet. Perhaps VHEMT is nothing more than tragically worded anti-natalism, but the parallels set off alarms for me, especially the insistence on this same non-existent population crisis.
It's also important to know that eco-fascists are deceptive and creep into environmental spaces at any opportunity. If you do real life organizing in the environmental or green space you WILL deal with eco-fascists seeking to co-opt your movement and organization. Everyone from well-established NGOs to green anarchists deal with this problem, and these folks aren't going to go out right and say they are a fascist. Just like we saw in the mid-'10s, they try to maintain some plausible deniability, and seek to hide their "power level" to allow it to grow, usually towards some right-wing accelerationist end.
VHEMT may not be at all associated with such things. But when fascist talking points are spread, it's important to recognize them even if the one spreading the points is doing so without malicious intent.
This feels tonally quite different from the emphatic assertion that it is "pure, distilled eco-facism". If one of the defining characteristics is specifically a sharp depopulation rather than a relatively gradual one then I think that claim holds a lot less water. I guess it is a particular branch/ flavour of anitnatalism.
I won't deny that I have seen a few who say they don't care about ongoing wars and conflicts and actively consider them a good thing for reducing the population, but Les Knight (the guy who the term VHEMT is attributed to and has been speaking on the subject for decades now) is still generally quite active in disavowing them. Most others also think they are complete idiots and don't take them seriously, so thankfully they tend not to persist in discussions.
You're completely right that these sorts of ideologies have a habit of creeping into well meaning spaces like this, not just environmental ones. I have some worries about what will happen to the movement when Les isn't able to fly the banner anymore for whatever reason; it'll create a vaccuum that genuinely is ripe for being filled by someone with less well intentioned ideals.
It sounds like maybe I should read some Les Knight before passing any further judgement on the group.
I'm stealing this from a comment I just wrote, but I want to make my position more clear. Eco-fascism makes two central claims:
There is a current overpopulation crisis, and this crisis is what's responsible for the environmental destruction we see today
The only way to stop this environmental destruction is to solve problem #1
Neither #1 or #2 are true, but if VHEMT can convince you that they are, you have adopted essentially the foundational beliefs of eco-fascism. When mere anti-natalism doesn't pay off and you truly believe both of these things, I worry that eco-fascism starts to actually look like a reasonable option.
Isn't a key component for fascism — and by extension eco-fascism — that it is authoritarian?
If we disregard that aspect, shouldn't we by similar argument for instance call all veganism some form of fascism? Someone who believes killing animals is wrong might be motivated to take drastic action to stop the bigger ongoing crime.
RobotOverlord525's post on the NYT's opinion piece about declining birth rates got me thinking that there tends not to be much acknowledgement of people that are doing this as part of a far more conscious effort.
VHEMT's website looks rather dated but they are still fairly active, I'd probably say far more active than they were back in the 90s. I don't think it's a coincidence that there's an increasing number of people choosing not to have children. There's a real feeling of hopelessness among the general public in a lot of places, primarily because we're being ravaged by the effects of late stage capitalism and possibly also the climate crisis which is getting a lot harder to ignore or deny. What sort of life is that to inflict on someone?
On a personal level, my views align with VHEMT. I put my money where my mouth is and got sterilised as soon as I turned 30, a procedure that I had to fight tooth and nail for which involved me sending a sarcastic letter to the surgeon who refused to do the surgery every single month for several years. My partner and I are still planning on adopting and have actually just started the process for this (for me this is because I think it's important to invest in the future of someone who already exists, other half would just like the full family experience).
I'd be interested to know if there's anyone else who has similar feelings or is even vehemently (vhemtly?) opposed to the concept.
Not exactly what you asked for a response, but this feels absurd to me.
I just got sterilized a few months ago at a similar age. I called the place, set up an appointment a week later, and they got me in and out in 30 minutes with the only questions being "Still want to do this?" and "Any music requests?"
I'm very jealous but also really glad your experience was so straightforward! I've known since I was about 13 that I didn't want kids of my own, I still had to have a number of meetings, telephone consults, interview with a psychiatrist to have a professional verify that I wasn't nuts, etc. The surgeon obviously realised I wasn't backing down because I got confirmation that I was scheduled for the procedure maybe a week after my 30th birthday (thankfully with a different surgeon).
It's been a complete slog but well worth it. It's hard to explain but I feel more complete as a person.
My wife went through the same thing. Even when the surgeon visited her just before the surgery, she was still basically trying to talk my wife out of it. It was a very frustrating experience, but she doesn't regret a thing a decade later.
The 'age 30' thing is no coincidence.
There is a significant subset of women who do not want children throughout their teens and 20s and then around age 30 abruptly change their mind. I'm not speculating on whether this is prompted by social or physiological changes, but it absolutely happens.
Consequently health care professionals are loathe to sterilise young childless women, in case they experience this change in perspective and then a significant avoidable regret.
Their reasoning is along the lines that reversible contraception is easy and effective (comparatively speaking) but that permanent sterilisation is, well, permanent - and so it's better to opt for the reversible version in the first instance.
Good point! It was explained to me that this wasn't out of malice and was following specific guidelines for this exact reason, but given my extensive history and incompatibility with other long term contraceptives (one of which I had fitted at the surgeon's insistence and subsequently landed me in A&E) it was incredibly frustrating that she continued to parrot this and that an exception couldn't be made. It's hard to think of what she could have said to make things better, but her delivery/ bedside manner was pretty poor.
I do always enjoy how mad people get at this movement. It seems to just rustle the collective "jimmies" of all non pessimists. I find pessimistic philosophy a fascinating study mostly due to the fact that they acknowledge that people don't like to think about these things or will actively challenge the philosophy because of some deep seated need to prove them wrong.
I find that there are some of us that are drawn towards pessimistic philosophy because of its conclusions, where how repugnant the conclusion is increases our credence in the claim itself.
There was some video essayist who coined the term masochistic epistemology: if a statement hurts, then it must be true, because if it weren't true, it wouldn't hurt. The context isn't terribly important, but there seem to be variants of what I'll call "dark epistemology": on 4chan's /pol/, the more "triggering" a belief is for "the libs" the more likely that belief is to be true. Those denying the truth of the belief are those merely incapable of handling the repugnant conclusion, and delude themselves to avoid it. Similar sorts of thought processes occur in debates on race and gender issues (e.g., they just can't handle the truth about that race or gender.)
This reminds me of mid '10s political discourse, where terms like "triggering the libs" were used and trolling was a large part of online discourse. I'm not saying pessimistic philosophy is necessarily like this discourse, rather that some of the same motivations are likely at play. As evidenced by your sentiment, part of us just likes seeing others get mad when we break them out of their fairy-tale to tell them how the world really is (or at least how we think that it is.)
I am bothered by comments like this, because they are condescending and unearned, not to mention hurtful to possibility of communication. Just because people are upset or bothered by an idea, it doesn't make that idea right, and it's not a particularly keen observation to point out that people have strong emotional reactions to critical attacks on the fundamental value of our existence. It certainly doesn't make the commenter above some petty emotional riffraff.
I have the second most popular comment at the moment, and contrary to your opinion, I have thought and think about these issues a lot. I've been riddled with chronic issues that destroyed much of what I had and what I could have, and they probably shortened my life span quite a lot. They are painful, both physically and emotionally. It's a struggle I experience every day. Death and the value of life have been on my mind a lot. And coming from a background of being a depressed but philosophically inclined kid, I read quite a bit of philosophical pessimists—Schopenhauer, Mainländer, Benatar, Cioran, Zapffe, Nietzsche, Camus, and others I can't remember. I found life-affirming pessimists to be helpful and truthful, to a degree, such as Nietzsche and Camus, but after more than a decade of contemplation, I found myself to be disagreeing quite a lot with the life-denying ones.
It's very easy to assume the people who are upset by these philosophies are simply the ones who don't want to consider them, but at the end it's just a bias, the path of least resistance. A fault in reasoning that enables one to dismiss opposing ideas without further contemplation. It costs less mental and emotional effort, that's why it exists, but it's ultimately a shortcircuit in reasoning. That's why it's unearned.
Honestly I regret the original timing of this post; I shot it off and then got buried in work and only re-entered the discussion at a relatively late stage. I don't think it helps that the direction of the discourse has been shaped by some early commenters having a very visceral reaction to the name alone and not really looking much further into it. I would find it rather bewildering if somebody read the material and still came to the conclusion that this was a call for genocide.
There are definitely valid criticisms to be had and questions to be raised (which I've enjoyed reading and discussing!) but some of the more highly rated comments about genocide and facism feel like they've come about as the result of a sideways glance at things rather than an earnest look.
To be honest, I'm inclined to say I still wouldn't agree even if the topic was elaborated upon more, but I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt. Maybe in the future, if you want to, you could make an introductory post explaning the movement with references and such? The page you linked seemed to support the anti-natalism angle, and this is where we disagree, but it could be that there could be more to it.
Maybe at some point :) variety is the spice of life and the world is a more interesting place when we have different perspectives but I think you're right that if I'd given a bit of preamble we would have all been more likely to be on the same page about it, whether we agreed or not.
I guess I am failing to see how people wanting to voluntarily not reproduce and die off has anything to do with you or anyone in this thread thus my opinion that ya'll need to calm down and go touch some grass. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement isn't about forcing anyone to do anything, more discussion about how shit sucks and from a pessimist standpoint "humans are dogshit".
Everyone here calling this fascism or calling it "pure hate" is just plain asinine to me. You do you though, and I'll stay childless and peace out when the time comes, sorry to "force" my fascism and hate on ya'll.
I don't even know why it has to be pessimistic! I think the far more bleak outlook is knowing that there are more people choosing not to have children who would dearly love them but simply cannot afford to do it. At least the people who subscribe to the VHEMT philosophy are choosing to do it because it's what they believe in. The majority of them still believe in enjoying rich, full lives full of hobbies, friends and broader contributions to society and the world around them.
I came here to make a similar top-level comment. With all the long-winded discussions of fascism, one may think that an article from the Daily Stormer got linked here. Nope: just one of the relatively tame long-running societies of online kooks.
It's like everyone forgot that taking these discussions seriously is their best recruitment tool. "Look at all these people typing essays about the ecofash over something so innocuous. They must be onto something to hit such a nerve."
Pure, arrogant evil, and I don't say that lightly.
Earth is already well on the backside of how much longer it will be able to support complex life. We exist now as the only creature so far that has even the potential capacity to both shepherd our world through ecological and resource constraints, and to even potentially expand life beyond our cradle world.
We are unique among the great apes in how stunningly, amazingly cooperative we are, and it's not a close comparison. That wars and truly terrible things happen does not run counter to this. It's just such a core facet of our nature that people don't see the water for the being a fish.
I would much rather see life spread than to have another few hundred million years, whether the biosphere 'recovers' or not, then come to a toasty end as the sun heats up, with nothing but some odd carbon residue to show for it all. That would a tragedy to me.
That's an interesting viewpoint! What about the movement makes it arrogant and evil? What makes it more arrogant and evil than the conscious idea that we have dominion over everything? Or that through proliferation we will be the earth's saviours? Or even that our predecessors gave us life and are therefore owed more children?
I agree we can achieve incredible things when we co-operate, but we don't seem to be co-operating enough. Ecological and resource constraints don't have to be such a huge challenge if there are fewer of us (I accept that some of this is artificial scarcity being perpetuated by some very shitty people though). We can still potentially expand life beyond earth with fewer people.
I think a lower population will take some of the pressure off but it won't solve the problems we're facing; we still need brilliant, co-operative people actively working towards that.
First off, I have to say I appreciate your friendly demeanor throughout this entire thread, and I mean that sincerely.
I start with that preface, because I genuinely can't tell if you are being serious or trolling with your questions. Are you genuinely asking why genocide is considered evil? Are you genuinely confused why such things are more evil than trying to work to make the world a better place, as imperfect as we are?
Thank you, I promise I am being completely sincere and operating in good faith. I don't think I'm confused, but I do think that you misunderstand the movement, which is why you think VHEMT is suggesting that genocide isn't evil.
The definition of genocide is "the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group." At face value, this does seem like what's being asked for. However, VHEMT is not calling for anybody to be killed - and certainly does not single out any particular nation or ethnicity. They're asking for people in general to stop being born.
Moreover, the very first word "voluntary" takes priority. If you're going to read anything about the movement, I think it's got to be this summary. They very much want to make the world a better place too, and they think this is the way to do it.
I should emphasise that I largely agree with the philosophy but I don't expect or particularly want it to be taken to its literal end goal of a population of 0 people. In fact, most people that subscribe to the movement's beliefs don't actually want this and the founders themselves acknowledge and are realistic about it. In that sense, the name of the movement is rather sensationalist.
I believe that some of the arguments on that page are supported by the notion that something can be good solely because it is natural, failing to acknowledge that the idealization of nature can only occur by selectively removing from view the numerous ways in which nature may shock our sensibilities with its senseless brutality.
I pose the question: why do we so easily assume the axiomatic majesty of nature as an universal, uncontroversial fact that warrants no discussion? Non-human nature certainly has a value, but it's not absolute. What kind of value is it, and in relation to what do we establish its worth?
That affirmation must not be understood as an irresponsible disregard for nature, but rather as an attempt to highlight the fact that it is not possible to dissociate our views about nature from our unique and inescapable human condition.
Sometimes I wonder, would nature be beautiful without being appreciate by something that can conceive beauty?
I feel unsure mentioning a logic fallacy in public. I assure everyone that I mean no harm. But I do believe there are instances of an appeal to nature in that webpage.
There is no "extinction", just removing yourself from the gene pool. I'd prefer those with good genes think hard on whether to pass them on, so we don't end up with a bunch of idiots who ruin the earth further down the line. I still support those who choose not to though, certainly we should end all social pressure to have children. We should also promote adopting to raise children already here. There's far too many orphans who need parents.
Instead of a population reduction movement, we should be looking to increase our density and an extremely long term goal of eventually moving the bulk of our population off-planet. With density comes efficiency and more natural land. So to start, getting cities to build/allow skyscrapers and mega-buildings that house many times the people, surround them with parkland and provide easy public transport between cities. With crops & fish grown year round indoors to reduce water, fertilizer, pesticides and herbicide. Maybe even start cities with density in mind, cities that are just one massive building.
Also move society to support scientists as much, if not more so, as it does celebrities and embrace technology more than it already does. I'm continually stunned at how much the USA, with all it's tech, is so far behind upgrading infrastructure and has so few people using new technology and methods. The suspiciously few who manufacture appliances and whatnot can't be helping. We also have companies worldwide milking old tech for all it's worth before implementing new, slowing down progress. If society discouraged such practices and encourages better tech adoption, maybe we can find a way to have lots of people AND a healthy planet a lot sooner as tech is churned out at a rapid pace.
Oh and I don't think capitalism has much place in the future. At some point every human job will be able to be done with no or minimal human intervention. At which point communism will be the best option. If no one has to work, why force them to? AI and Robots could provide everything you want for free. The only thing you'd have to give up on is owning land or more space than you need. Meanwhile you'd be free to do what excites you. Be it art, music, reading, wandering the world, playing games, sleeping, whatever floats your boat that doesn't harm others. Obviously I'm very against the "people need to work" mentality, that's just another capitalist myth to keep the population under their thumb, alongside being able to succeed if you work hard enough. With all our tech and massive increase in productivity in the last 100 years and here we are breaking our backs for peanuts that seem to lose their quality more every year. With all that productivity increase we ought to have seen some kind of decrease in how much work we need to do as wages go up, but most the benefits of increased productivity went to shareholders' pockets. At this point most of us are just slaves to corporate america, so much for the land of the free.
Anyway, I'd say we all need to stop imagining and start doing, but I'd be quite the hypocrite. I think there's a huge barrier to changing things, we may know what needs to be done, but lack knowledge, ability or time to do it. Take me, no way could I lead that as I'm far too introverted and no time to do more than rant online. :/
Damn, thoughts are all over today. I need better sleep, dagnabbit DST! 🤕
Good riddance.