Anti-Natalism, Can It Really Exist?

[ToALonelyPeace]

People can appreciate whatever aspects of an author they like (especially in this case), but I don't see why the presence of an antinatalist thread on a forum dedicated to an author who has written an antinatalist tract should provoke words such as "This forum has become unpleasant."

It's not like we're selling cocaine in the suburb.

[GirlyGirlMask]

Quote Originally Posted by ToALonelyPeace

People can appreciate whatever aspects of an author they like (especially in this case), but I don't see why the presence of an antinatalist thread on a forum dedicated to an author who has written an antinatalist tract should provoke words such as "This forum has become unpleasant." It's not like we're selling cocaine in the suburb.

Thanks for the perspective. You are right, we are all here because we love the work of Thomas Ligotti.

[cannibal cop]

One thing (and perhaps only one thing) is beyond doubt: the varieties of suffering are infinite.

To really hammer this point home, I recommend checking out the show "Monsters Inside Me" if you can find it (episodes may be available on Youtube). This show chronicles some of the more outlandish ailments that have challenged medical science in recent years, whether due to the legions of bizarre microscopic predators seething through the air and water and soil around us, or due to simple surgical screwups and "eating mishaps"(!).

The horrors that can befall people of all ages simply for swimming in the wrong pond, or breathing in the wrong dust, or biting into the wrong burger--truly stunning in their malignant power and diversity.

At the other end of the spectrum are the mundane sufferings that we are all prey to: the constant work of gravity on our infinitely fallible, failing bodies, the ever-present demands of hunger, thirst and exhaustion that must be kept in check, etc. And of course the constant threat of the less-mundane sufferings that, if not ultimately fatal, can nevertheless reduce existence to a living hell, permanently or otherwise.

As an antinatalist, I don't consider "the world" the problem, however hostile it may be to our existence. As far as we can tell, it's just a bunch of insentient machinery dumbly going through its motions.

No, the problem is Life itself, its strangely crude and cruel workings, and its vicious, relentless insistence on propagating itself, with severe pain the punishment for those organisms that somehow fail to comply with its endless demands.

Death is simply Life's right-hand man, the promise of extinction and unknowable suffering held over the heads of its victims to keep them in line. This is the inhumane system that antinatalism is a response to, however futile.

[Mr. Veech]

Quote Originally Posted by cannibal cop

One thing (and perhaps only one thing) is beyond doubt: the varieties of suffering are infinite. To really hammer this point home, I recommend checking out the show "Monsters Inside Me" if you can find it (episodes may be available on Youtube). This show chronicles some of the more outlandish ailments that have challenged medical science in recent years, whether due to the legions of bizarre microscopic predators seething through the air and water and soil around us, or due to simple surgical screwups and "eating mishaps"(!). The horrors that can befall people of all ages simply for swimming in the wrong pond, or breathing in the wrong dust, or biting into the wrong burger--truly stunning in their malignant power and diversity. At the other end of the spectrum are the mundane sufferings that we are all prey to: the constant work of gravity on our infinitely fallible, failing bodies, the ever-present demands of hunger, thirst and exhaustion that must be kept in check, etc. And of course the constant threat of the less-mundane sufferings that, if not ultimately fatal, can nevertheless reduce existence to a living hell, permanently or otherwise. As an antinatalist, I don't consider "the world" the problem, however hostile it may be to our existence. As far as we can tell, it's just a bunch of insentient machinery dumbly going through its motions. No, the problem is Life itself, its strangely crude and cruel workings, and its vicious, relentless insistence on propagating itself, with severe pain the punishment for those organisms that somehow fail to comply with its endless demands. Death is simply Life's right-hand man, the promise of extinction and unknowable suffering held over the heads of its victims to keep them in line. This is the inhumane system that antinatalism is a response to, however futile.

My personal "favorite" ailment is the fact that we're programmed to pursue something that doesn't exist. It's all quite stupid.

[cannibal cop]

Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Veech

My personal "favorite" ailment is the fact that we're programmed to pursue something that doesn't exist. It's all quite stupid.

And from the first we're taught to accept this state of affairs as sensible because it has been dictated by beings that don't exist.

[Evans]

Suffering, suffering, suffering - why should one not delight in other peoples' suffering and seek to maximize it? The whole edifice is just an appeal to indignation.

I have said this before (to which the reply was 'dark, dark, that sounds like affirming some kind of dignity of human life') but I think anti-natalism is better argued for on Kantian grounds that one can never intend procreation in a way that does not treat the unborn solely as a means to something. This attempt to derive morality from suffering and pleasure is dead from the word off (even if one can make the plausible case that any individual is determined to dislike pain then what are the rational grounds for deriving normative conclusions from that dislike? Even if we accept naively that one ought to minimize one's own pain or maximize one's own pleasure then that cannot dictate the kinds of moral obligations towards others people often want, not unless it is combined with some form of rational egotism on which helping others maximize or minimize will yield a greater return in pleasure maximilisation or pain minimalisation for oneself)

[cannibal cop]

The last thing I want to do is dictate anyone else's beliefs or morality, or impose a sense of obligation on others. I was merely expressing my own beliefs. Others can and should feel free to agree or disagree as they see fit.

[gveranon]

Sylvester - Sufferin Succotash - YouTube

[Frater_Tsalal]

If I was unborn
I would have nothing to be grateful for
I would have never seen love
I would have never held cats
I would have never buried my friends
And prayed for their souls
In reddening churches
I would never have kissed
And I would never have wept
And I would never have seen
Black Ships eat the sky
And I would have been unborn
And not have seen circuses
Whilst watching the flowers
Rise flags made of atoms
Who will deliver me from myself?

-David Tibet

[ItCreatesEmptiness]

I often posed similar questions upon myself Nemonymous.
But rather than asking "Anti-Natalism, Can It Really Exist?" I ask myself "can a complete Anti-Natalist really exist?".

What I mean by "complete" is that even though I rationally and philosophically think existence brings more suffering than joy, I can not help to feel other parts of me still enjoy things like seeing a young child laugh or seeing a young cat play.
I believe the entity of "Me" consists of an or several "thinking minds" capable of abstract thought and an mass of unknown form I would call "unconscious mind".

I am very sure, that if someone proposed to me, that it would be better that none of these two (child and cat) were born and one would be merciful for painlessly killing them, I would disagree, even though this would not be an illogical extension of the core idea of antinatalism itself.

I believe that the reason for this is that even though I consider big parts of my conscious mind antinatalistic in tendency, other unconscious and maybe semi-conscious parts of me are not. This thereby makes the entity of "Me" only partly antinatalistic.

I believe that several of these unconscious parts of the entity of "Me" are very basal in their function, they make me continue to breath, make me feel hungry and thirsty every few hours.

To come back to the question at hand:
I propose three kinds of antinatalists.

- a strong anti-natalist: a person in whom all conscious and unconscious parts
agree that even another second of existence is worse than death (for others as
well as for himself). This one would probably actively seek suicide.

- a weak anti-natalist: a person in which at least one ore more parts are
antinatalistic in tendency and all other parts of personality are neither positive
nor negative in their tendency towards life and death.
Such a person would probably die by inactivity, when neither drinking or eating
or even breathing would be worth the hassle.

- a mixed anti-natalist: a person in which at least one ore more parts are
antinatalistic in tendency, while one ore more parts want to survive and maybe
even procreate.
These two tendencies would create a equilibrium of forces, keeping the mixed
anti-nathalist from self annihilation.

I count myself to the mixed kind of anti-natalist and think that the possibility to find a weak anti-natalist "in the wild" is low (for they would not live very long in that state of mind).

I actually doubt, that a strongly anti-natalistic human being could exist, for at least our tendency to breathe is regulated by the brainstem, a part of our brains that is evolutionary that old, that I doubt it could reprogrammed to stop breathing.

There are storys about holy monks that stopped their heartbeat or breathing by power of their own will and died peacefully, but (even if taking these storys for true) I believe such things would only be possible by somehow suppressing connections between lungs and brainstem, while it itself would still continue to send signals for the lungs to breathe (and thereby continue to fight for survival).

Thank you for the interresting question Nemonymous.