That’s the problem with this notion, isn’t it? That idea that humans are no good and that we shouldn’t exist. In the extreme you get movements like antinatalism that have given up all hope for humanity and take on a downright anti-human stance. I happen to think that’s an unhealthy way of seeing things.
Being OK is worth taking seriously, and it does not settle the question. The antinatalist claim is not that everyone is miserable. It is that a life can go badly in ways the person who is created had no chance to decline, and that being all right yourself is not evidence about which risk another person drew. Nor is the position anti-human. It comes from the opposite direction: the concern is for the being who would have to navigate a world that is not reliably kind, and it is expressed by declining to put someone there, not by despising the ones already here. A view that had given up on humanity would want it gone. This one wants the suffering already present addressed, and asks that no more be added as collateral to a bet nobody agreed to.
That’s a well-written argument but I maintain that antinatalism is a form of antihumanism since it leads to the extinction of the human race. It is steeped in pessimism about people’s capability to mitigate their own suffering.
Declining to bet on behalf of your progeny also leaves them bereft of the chance to live a fulfilled life. I will 100% support everyone’s individual decision to remain child-free but antinatalism isn’t that.
And I’d much rather support euthanasia (the literal kind, not the crime committed e.g. by the Nazis) or suicide for those who make an autonomous decision against life. But rejecting life ab initio (or rather a priori) seems like the worst position in this debate to me.
I love humanity for what it can be, but at the moment it’s absolutely a problem for the world as a whole. You can love something and still understand that it’s currently a problem, and needs to improve in order to be healthy.
The issue is semantic, but also important: our present actions are deeply problematic to the planet; however, are not imbued with the inherent trait of being problems to this planet.
To say “we are the problem” implies that the solution is for us to go away. To say “we are being problematic” would imply that the solution is to change our actions.
Speak for yourself. I’m OK.
That’s the problem with this notion, isn’t it? That idea that humans are no good and that we shouldn’t exist. In the extreme you get movements like antinatalism that have given up all hope for humanity and take on a downright anti-human stance. I happen to think that’s an unhealthy way of seeing things.
Being OK is worth taking seriously, and it does not settle the question. The antinatalist claim is not that everyone is miserable. It is that a life can go badly in ways the person who is created had no chance to decline, and that being all right yourself is not evidence about which risk another person drew. Nor is the position anti-human. It comes from the opposite direction: the concern is for the being who would have to navigate a world that is not reliably kind, and it is expressed by declining to put someone there, not by despising the ones already here. A view that had given up on humanity would want it gone. This one wants the suffering already present addressed, and asks that no more be added as collateral to a bet nobody agreed to.
That’s a well-written argument but I maintain that antinatalism is a form of antihumanism since it leads to the extinction of the human race. It is steeped in pessimism about people’s capability to mitigate their own suffering.
Declining to bet on behalf of your progeny also leaves them bereft of the chance to live a fulfilled life. I will 100% support everyone’s individual decision to remain child-free but antinatalism isn’t that.
And I’d much rather support euthanasia (the literal kind, not the crime committed e.g. by the Nazis) or suicide for those who make an autonomous decision against life. But rejecting life ab initio (or rather a priori) seems like the worst position in this debate to me.
I love humanity for what it can be, but at the moment it’s absolutely a problem for the world as a whole. You can love something and still understand that it’s currently a problem, and needs to improve in order to be healthy.
The issue is semantic, but also important: our present actions are deeply problematic to the planet; however, are not imbued with the inherent trait of being problems to this planet.
To say “we are the problem” implies that the solution is for us to go away. To say “we are being problematic” would imply that the solution is to change our actions.
Precisely.