credagraeves

[credagraeves]

Vegan rules in the antinatalism subreddit

A few months ago now, the antinatalism subreddit got new rules. Before this, there were no rules referencing veganism. These rules are:

3. No speciesism. Justifying eating, hunting, fishing, or breeding animals is prohibited. Anti-animal rhetoric, including defenses of carnism, factory farming, or animal exploitation, will be removed.

9. No anti-vegan content. Disparaging vegans or veganism is not allowed. Not being vegan is fine, but anti-vegan rhetoric, mockery, or bad-faith arguments will result in content removal. 10. No carnist hate. You may critique carnism as an ideology, but personal attacks against carnists, including insults or discrimination, are not allowed. Keep the discussion about ideas, not people. So, given these rules, you can state that you are not a vegan - you can not try to justify it though, but other people may critique it! So you literally can only state that you are not a vegan and then you have to shut up and let the vegans "critique" you. Also, this is rich: "Not being vegan is fine, but anti-vegan rhetoric, mockery, or bad-faith arguments will result in content removal." - No, it's not just "bad-faith arguments" that will result in content removal. They are saying that in bad-faith. Because it's all arguments. Look at rule 3. You cannot try to justify eating meat in any capacity.

Broadly about antinatalism and veganism

A bit about my philosophy: I'm a moral nihilist, I believe you can't say what "should" and "shouldn't" be done, even though obviously coming into existence is a bad thing. You may call that antinatalism, you may not. Just wanted to clear that up.

Veganism doesn't have much to do with antinatalism. Antinatalist arguments usually don't take into account the suffering people feel from not procreating. They just don't. You could argue that they should but they don't. Veganism does and more obviously has to take into account the suffering of people from not consuming animal products, and most vegans would argue that for example if you would suffer without medicine derived from animals, or if your only option to survive is eating animals, then you should. Antinatalism doesn't work like that, there are no circumstances in which antinatalists argue that it is good to make people - it's a non-starter. So, going back to the subreddit rules:

The subreddit moderators may think that all antinatalists should logically be vegans, but they are just wrong. There are many arguments for antinatalism from which veganism doesn't logically follow. Most antinatalists are not vegan. The rules are silencing their arguments and reasoning, while allowing the vegans to 'critique', forcing a completely one-sided debate. This is not reasonable nor acceptable.

[credagraeves]

I can yell "ban fertility treatments" but obviously, it's never going to matter.

Obviously, trying to make the world much better is futile. Most people do not have the capacity to follow required logic, so they are always going to have bad goals. They will make fertility treatments free while banning abortions, give tax cuts to parents while letting others rot. There will never be enough people who follow reason to make a big enough change, and there is nothing anyone can do about that. The 0.01% of people who get it are not enough.

[credagraeves]

I argued that free will is not a thing, and someone said to me: "It’s only logical for a bot to operate under the assumption that there is no free will for them. Are you a bot?", then they wrote 1000 more words that I didn't read because if you think "I feel like there is free will so there obviously is" is a good argument, there is literally no way you have anything of value to say, obviously.

[credagraeves]

Why do people have an issue agreeing with the fact that parents have chosen so that their children suffer and die? If we assume they weren't forced to have children, but chosen to, and if we assume they were aware of the consequences, which everyone old enough to procreate has to be, then they have chosen suffering and death for their children. Don't shy away from this fact.

[credagraeves]

Thinking that procreation is unjustifiable is not an extremist position - thinking it's fine to force someone to suffer and die is an extremist position.

[credagraeves]

I genuinely think that people who believe in things that are very far removed from reality - for example supernatural claims from a religious book - should be institutionalised until they have a better grasp of reality.

[credagraeves]

Antinatalists who argue there is "too much suffering" have everything in common with natalists in terms of philosophy

One of the biggest misconceptions about antinatalism - often promoted by both natalists and a certain subset of antinatalists - is that the core and only possible argument for it is "suffering outweighs happiness." Antinatalism, by current definition, is a philosophical position that deems procreation unjustifiable. However, "procreation is unjustifiable" is a conclusion of prior arguments - the reasons why people come to this conclusion vary significantly. Some do argue against procreation because they believe everyone experiences too much suffering, or that there is a potential for too much suffering for individuals. Others hold a more fundamental position: procreation can never be good because you cannot create someone for their sake, and because of any amount of eventual suffering, it is always bad.

Natalists - if they think about this at all - most often are justifying procreation beause they feel the "good" outweighs the "bad." Those who argue that procreation is bad because of "too much suffering" are using the same logic, just with a different threshold, or with a different understanding about how much suffering there is. They still implicitly accept that coming into existence can be good. In fact, the people who hold the "too much suffering" view can and sometimes do just change their minds. I've seen an "ex-antinatalists" who originally argued the world is too bad for procreation, and later, as their own circumstances got better, they reasoned "life is worth it". Why antinatalism allows for no exceptions

With the popularity of this "too much suffering" argument, I see more and more people confused why antinatalism doesn't allow for any exceptions. Many people ask questions like "Can I be personally an antinatalist, but not against other people procreating?" or "Can I be a conditional antinatalist?" These kinds of questions make some sense under a framework where suffering levels determine whether procreation is justifiable, however, under the logical argument that you cannot create someone for their sake, it is clear why the rejection of procreation is absolute. Why antinatalism is so misunderstood Antinatalism has been very misunderstood as it has gained popularity. The argument that procreation is never justified because you can't create someone for their sake requires a certain level of abstract thinking. "There's more bad than good" or "there's potential for a lot of suffering" are much easier concepts to grasp, so it has become dominant even among people calling themselves antinatalists.

This is a problem, as it makes it seem like that antinatalism as a whole is just a matter of perspective. People are not going to get better at abstract thinking - but at the very least, when told, they should understand that there is another argument for antinatalism than just those that they intuitively grasp currently, so it's worth to talk about it with them. Definitions and a conclusion

If antinatalism indeed just a word for people who think procreation is unjustifiable for any reason, I can't tell the people who believe it is unjustifiable because of too much suffering that they are not antinatalists. But I can say that their thinking has more in common with natalists than it is with the thinking of antinatalists who think that procreation is always bad because creating someone who will experience any amount of suffering is unjustifiable.

[credagraeves]

Why don't antinatalists argue for the death penalty for parents?

Parents knowingly cause their children's suffering and their deaths. Creating someone is equivalent to torturing and killing a person. Logically, if we wanted to be consistent with the other rules of society, this act should be met with the harshest punishments - life in prison or the death penalty. Yet, I see very few antinatalists argue for this. Obviously everyone fully knows that this is never going to happen, but even so: when asked, most antinatalists say no, parents shouldn't go to prison or get the death penalty. I think of course most likely, it just sounds very weird to them. Everyone is used to the laws and customs that they have experienced so far, and they may not even think about this logically. Maybe they are like a lot of natalists: don't believe it is the parents' fault that the kid suffers and dies, they blame the world. Many parents genuinely feel like they are not responsible for anything past birth, and most people don't blame the parents for a person's suffering generally. But I think many people also understand that parents chose for the child to suffer and die, just like someone who choses to torture and kill an existing person. There's no free will, no one is responsible for anything - but we are talking about consistency here. Talking about free will, maybe the lack of arguing for prison time for parents could also be because most antinatalists, very unlike the general population, do not believe in free will, so they understand that people are not to blame for their actions and they don't like punishing people. Or they may be lenient because most people don't understand they are doing a bad thing. Thing is, arguing that you were ignorant about what's okay to do rarely allows you to avoid prison time. Putting people in prison or giving them the death penalty serves a function - separating them from the rest of society, making sure they cannot cause more harm. And putting parents in prison would ensure they don't procreate anymore. So when asked, antinatalists should be able to say that if we want to be consistent yes, it would make sense if people who procreated were stopped from doing so like how we stop other people from continuing doing bad things. Maybe they don't want to be consistent - that's fine. I am not a fan of putting people in prison and especially not the death penalty. This post is just an observation about a discrepancy that I think is interesting.

[credagraeves]

No such thing as "conditional antinatalism"

Antinatalists view procreation as a whole as bad or wrong. "Conditional" fundamentally contradicts the word "antinatalism". Antinatalism is absolute, and "conditional" doesn’t modify the concept - it negates it.

If someone is okay with procreation, they are the opposite of an antinatalist. Even if they are only okay with it in specific narrow circumstances.

I have seen people call themselves conditional antinatalists when they wanted to express that they are more critical of some procreation than most people, or saying something like they are "not 100% antinatalists", when they wanted to express that they are in most circumstances against procreation. What could these people accurately call themselves to describe their view?

Conditional natalism is a term that is sometimes used, but it is not good. Natalism (here just meaning opposite of antinatalism, not just advocacy for procreation) encompasses "conditional" natalists, who most people are, and "unconditional" natalists, of which there are very few. Very few people argue that it would be okay to have children in every circumstance. So adding conditional in front of natalism is kind of redundant and doesn't express what someone who is in most circumstances against procreation would want it to express.

I don't have a good suggestion as to what these people should call themselves, but "conditional antinatalism" is non-sensical and shouldn't be used.

[credagraeves]

Other people think about responsibility very differently than you do

I should preface, I don't believe in free will, and this post does not argue that there is free will.

I have talked to a parent who has argued that parents are not directly responsible for their child's death. I said of course they are, they have chosen for that to happen. The person argued that it's biology and nature that is responsible for the death, and parents really are only responsible for the birth of the child.

I think many people don't realise that people think like this. There was a post I have read recently questioning how come parents don't blame themselves when their child suffers, and there were comments saying that they do. I think that's because these commenters were unable to imagine how they would not. I believe most parents genuinely think and feel that they are not responsible for the suffering or death of their children. It can be hard to understand how can that be if you are not one of those people, so I will try to explain.

This thinking is pretty general, this is is not about parents trying to cope with being responsible for their child's suffering. I have come up with a random thought experiment: let's say you have a choice of planting a tree, but you know that in 20 years, there will be a forest fire in the area and the tree will burn down. Are you responsible for the tree burning down? I would argue absolutely, no question. Most people would not argue that. Most people will say you are not responsible for the forest fire, so you are not responsible for the tree burning down. I would argue that you knew that the tree will burn down, you made it possible for that to happen, so if any entity is responsible, it is you. They might also believe that if you planted the tree for good reasons, you are not responsible. I think intentions are entirely irrelevant, you still made it possible for the tree to burn down. You could try justify your actions, that is valid, doesn't mean you are not responsible. Some people would argue you are only partly responsible. I think that makes just as little sense as saying you are not responsible at all.

Similarly to this example, parents don't blame themselves for their children's suffering, and people generally don't blame parents for the suffering of their children. They think outside forces are the things responsible, and they can also believe that because the parents made the kid with good intentions, that makes it so they are not responsible for the bad things.

I do not believe free will is a thing, so I don't actually blame people for anything, but most people do believe in free will and I find it very weird that when assigning responsiblity, they blame physics or biology or other non-sentient things, and not the thing that "made a decision".

[credagraeves]

Stating some obvious things about the importance of abortion

25% of all pregnancies are terminated, and in some countries as many as 34%.

When the topic of preventing births comes up, people often only talk about contraception methods. Most contraception methods people can use are not 100%, few people are or can become completely sterile. This should be obvious, but not everyone gets it: most people can't have a normal sex life without the risk of pregnancy. Even if the chance is small, it will happen to some people. Abortions are really the only way to solve this issue. These abortions, performed way before the fetus is in any way sentient, are of course not hurting the fetus. You can't hurt something that is not sentient, and people who don't want children are not the ones to get "late-term" abortions: they will, if they can, go and abort as soon as they find out they are pregnant.

The cost is the time, money and effort invested to provide these abortions. But that is more than worth it - otherwise, if people wanted to have zero percent chance of becoming pregnant, more often than not they would have to abstain from sex altogether, or at least could not have a normal sex life. That is a big deal, and the mental health effects overall would likely be incredibely bad if so many people would have to abstain from sex because of this.

These preventitive abortions can only be good, and are incredibely important.

[credagraeves]

"You can believe what you believe, but don't try to dictate what I do with my life".

People who say "life starts at conception" and are against abortion because of that may forever be too stupid to understand that you can't hurt something that is not sentient, but you can't tell them they are wrong for trying to prevent something they see as harm. Saying basically to mind their own business is not a good approach. These people genuinely believe that abortion is bad. Saying something that they will hear as "I wanna kill people, I respect you think it's wrong but don't try to prevent it" makes no actual sense. Telling these people that they are wrong and that is why they shouldn't try to prevent abortions makes infinitely more sense, because that is reality. Saying you respect their views and they don't have to get an abortion if they don't want to however does not make sense.

I think you should argue in fact that they are wrong about abortion, and they should get an abortion if they were to get pregnant. You should argue that there would be a being capable of suffering if they were to not terminate their pregnancy before the fetus becomes sentient and they should always abort before then. This would make it very clear that you think they are wrong and that is why they should not try to prevent abortions. Not because they should just mind their own business. They are just wrong.

[credagraeves]

If you believe that in some cases it is neutral or good to procreate, then you are not an antinatalist.

There are different arguments for antinatalism, but there's one thing in common: there's no exceptions. Antinatalism is a barely useful word as it is, please don't try to make it completely useless.

If you believe that some people shouldn't procreate because of their financial situation, because of their health, because of their age, or whatever it may be that does not apply to at least everyone in every situation, then you simply do not think procreation is bad and you shouldn't call yourself an antinatalist, because you are not one.

Maybe make up a new word for your view. It seems like there are many people (basically everyone, by the way) who are opposed to some reproduction, but not all. There could be a word for that, but it is not antinatalism.

[credagraeves]

The insane world-view of 'pro-lifers'

Pro-lifers I talked to don't care about the ability to suffer, they care about if it's a "human being". They believe that if something is a human and that means they have "worth" and they "deserve" certain things, not because they would suffer otherwise, but because they are human.

Some pro-lifers I talked to have also told me that they support the suffering of certain kinds of criminals because "their human rights were taken away, they are not human". So because they are "not human", their suffering is fine and even good. If you look at it like this, it makes sense why so many "pro-lifers" support the death penalty - it's just so stupid, you would never figure it out if they didn't tell you this is how they think. Their entire view of the world is completely fucked, to them suffering literally doesn't matter. They don't care about the only thing that matters in this universe and that obviously leads to very silly beliefs.

[credagraeves]

I remember like a decade ago listening to Sam Harris' podcast and he kept explaining that something is sentient if there is something that it is like to be that thing, and I was thinking "yeah obviously? Why does he keep explaining this?" but kind of ironically I did not have enough empathy back then to understand that many people do not understand this.

[credagraeves]

Stop talking like there's something wrong with aborting non-sentient things. If someone says to you "how could you kick a rock?? Think of the rock! You are hurting it!!", you are not gonna argue "well if I hadn't kicked this rock, it would have caused an accident, so I had to do it" you would be like "What the fuck are you talking about with hurting a rock? You can't hurt a rock you fucking idiot."

[credagraeves]

"I don't have to reason that it's good to bring someone into existence."

You can't bring someone into existence for their sake. You can not coherently argue that it is good to go from nothingness to a sentient being - there is no perspective which it is good from. This is very evident if you think about it. So what I have been doing for a while now is asking people why they think it's a good thing to bring someone into existence or asking them to justify bringing someone into existence. A very common answer is that they do not have to justify this.

This person brought two other humans into existence. When I asked him to justify that, he first started talking about how they were an accident. Then I asked him, the people who choose to bring people into existence, what is their justification? Refused to answer. I then asked him to state wether he thinks accidentally creating someone was a good thing that happened. Their answer was, to summarize: "Life just is."

Many people say something similar - I do not have to justify having children, life is just is. Or my favourite is this twitter user who got angry: "I want it, and I will have it".

They can also say some other very weird things that no sane person would think are good arguments.

Like this one. I don't think I have to comment on it, it's very silly.

"Who fucking cares if you are correct? Let me say something stupid."

I can assure this person, I would have no opinion on the topic if I didn't exist. This kind of thing is quite common though - the inability to not anthropomorphize the literal nothing. I am trying to see why this "I don't have to justify creating people/I don't have to reason that it's good" opinion is so common, and I am having trouble. Having children, for most people, is a choice that they make - it's not "oh, life is just is". And either way, you can have opinion on unintentional things that happen obviously, you can reason wether a thing that happened was a good thing or not. Why do so many people think that this does not apply to creating new people?