this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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the_dunk_tank
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I'm also kind of an antinatalist and I think the answer is that it's hopeless to talk about on this website most of the time, and when you see someone else use the term, just replace it in your head with "malthusian"
idk, that kind of makes it worse. not really going to die on this hill but I mostly see malthusian arguments from ecofash types. equitable redistribution of the resources we already have goes a long way towards reducing birth rates -- people have lots of children, generally, because they need them to work/the kids tend to die -- and beyond that... let's cross that bridge when we get there as we're already talking about a world that's vastly different from the one we live in currently?
I do view malthusianism as basically fascist, what I was saying is that when HB uses the term "antinatalism" they mean a hodgepodge of positions mostly ranging from "r/childfree" to "sterilizing undesirables", neither of which are antinatalism in the proper sense.
A real antinatalist isn't even necessarily against personally having children (and letting all others in the present do so), because the goal is the end of any sentient birth and not some lifestyle choice, so it is a matter of developing human society in a direction where the society voluntarily lets itself die, which is unlikely to happen in the next few centuries. Whether or not any specific individual between now and then reproduces is completely inconsequential to that.
That's the most fucked up unacceptable end goal I've heard of
that's how I understood antinatalism and, despite not wanting children personally, I still don't think that's a society I'd want to live in, nor a position I find in line with socialism. the goal is to develop a society where life is livable and one in which the environmental impacts of human existence won't lead to the eventual death of society because of catastrophic load on necessary resources or on the climate - the continuation of society is implicit in that. if we can achieve that society, the choices of individuals to have or not have children remains a personal decision.
Who's to say? I'm not particularly seeking to convince anyone, just explain some of what the position is.
I personally view it as a matter of primary vs secondary contradictions, where -- if the pessimists are correct -- the problem of the basic nature of sentient existence is the last of all contradictions to be solved, after communism proper has already been achieved. I think the basic fork is between the essentiality of suffering and the possibility of transhumanism to end suffering.
Regarding personal choice, well, I think it's a good thing all things being equal, but rights are not the basic starting point of Marxist ethics (such as they are), consequentialism is. China made errors with its one child policy (see all the infanticide people committed in response), but that does not mean such a policy is deontologically wrong jn any circumstance. Of course, if most people want to reproduce, that indicates by normal Marxist metrics that society is not ready to let itself die. If it is overwhelmingly popular that all reproduction end, I likewise see no reason why the remainder should be entitled to have children. To prevent some particular group from reproducing is of course discriminatory, but if it's everyone, then that circles around to it being a matter of individual rights and those are less fundamental than democracy.
Or you can take the semi-optimistic view of transhumanism having the potential to bail us out of this problem, which I don't agree with personally but don't find fundamentally unreasonable.
you mean in the Hindu/Buddhist sense? if we're talking post-communism, it's such a different society from the one we live in that I don't think it's valuable to speculate on what we will need to do once we get there. but yeag, I get you and I'm also not trying to convince anyone and I apprentice the explanation.
Yeah, I mean I would probably ascribe an even more essential position to suffering than the traditional Buddhist account does (which emphasizes inevitability more than an essentiality that exists at the core of personal experience) but there is 100% an influence from Hinduism and Buddhism here.