antinatalism

[DarlBundren]

Hi everybody

are any of you familiar with antinatalism?

I have recently read two Singer's pieces on the topic: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... eneration/ and http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... -response/ Since most of these people are concerned with environmental problems and utilitarianism I thought it would make a good thread for this community. I've seen that there are several books on the subjectet (the aforementioned David Benatar's better not to have been, alan wiesman's the world without us, for example) and there is even a worlwide group for voluntary human extinction (VHEM).

Is there anyone out there who identify themselves as 'antinatalist'?

[garrethdsouza]

Hi have you made an intro post?

I don't think it makes sense to not have kids or at least to not raise kids (can be adopted) especially individuals who are conscientious and capable of making a change/influencing others like vegans who could be the most ideal kind of individuals to have kids - much lower impact and kids could then influence others. I think Singer notes this to an extent AFAIK.

While recidivism is an issue and one can't necessarily predict whether the kid will stay vegan, most of the folks who revert are the ones who were in it for health rather than ethical reasons so I doubt the probability of this happening would be high.

The human extinction bit sounds even more risible (I know yourovsky thinks on somewhat similar lines.) Animal suffering would continue endlessly in the wild if humans were to go extinct while if we stick around we may be able to significantly change that for the better and gradually reduce sentient suffering significantly.

[brimstoneSalad]

most of the folks who revert are the ones who were in it for health rather than ethical reasons so I doubt the probability of this happening would be high.

Not sure.
It seems to be true that the vast majority have been on fad diets, or otherwise bad diets, but it's not clear if they got into it on a fad diet, or if they got into it for emotional reasons and then were misled into a fad diet which led to failure.
Many ethical vegans are also following bad diets, like HCLF.

So, this may be a correlation issue. Vegans who get on bad diets fail (and believe they can't be vegan); whether they started as a bad health fad (raw, HCLF, etc.) or got into it for ethical reasons then fell into the fad when getting bad nutritional advice is not as clear.

Most people who have failed also seem to get into it for bad ethical reasons-- like deontology. We understand that as soon as holes are poked into the deontological framework by a moderately intelligent carnist, it comes crashing down, but it's not clear if the ethical framework gave out, or bad diet did.
This may be another correlation issue, since there seems to be a lot of overlap; being rational about ethics may correlate to being rational about health, which may result in a sustainable vegan diet. Being crazy about one thing may correlate to being crazy about others, and reducing success rate regardless of the source of the problem.

Anyway, I agree on kids: As you said, this should be relatively easy to reduce with good education. But also make sure your kids are friends with other vegan kids (or at least animal lovers), since peer pressure more than parental guidance influences kids most in their teens.

The human extinction bit sounds even more risible (I know yourovsky thinks on somewhat similar lines.) Animal suffering would continue endlessly in the wild if humans were to go extinct while if we stick around we may be able to significantly change that for the better and gradually reduce sentient suffering significantly.

And more likely, give it a few million years and another intelligent species will evolve and start the cycle over again. Hitting the reset button just sets us back from the potential we have to advance beyond our current level of cruelty and ignorance.
We don't have to be particularly optimistic about the future to understand that the next species after us wouldn't have any better odds, and if we kill ourselves off out of conscience, we're just reducing our odds by applying selective pressure against ethics.