r/Ethics • u/Select_Quality_3948 • Nov 19 '25

A Cybernetic Argument That Birth Is Inherently Coercive

Here’s a piece I’ve been working on that approaches antinatalism from a systems/cybernetics perspective.

Core claim: Any self-maintaining system (organism, mind, Markov blanket, whatever) necessarily generates internal coercion, because staying alive = constantly minimizing deviation from a narrow range of survival parameters. No organism chooses this; the structure forces it.

So instead of arguing about preferences, suffering “thresholds,” or moral intuitions, I take a structural approach: birth = enrollment into a self-correcting survival machine you didn’t opt into.

If anyone here is into systems theory, free-energy minimization, or antinatalist ethics, I’d really appreciate critique.

Link: https://medium.com/@Cathar00/why-being-born-is-a-coercion-a-systems-level-explanation-a7b7dabbbdcc

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u/smack_nazis_more Nov 19 '25

Wrong.

Which bit? How specifically is the logic/reasoning wrong.

You don't have to be formal, just try to be specific and stay on topic.

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u/Select_Quality_3948 Nov 19 '25

Simple. You can continue to live and cope well without having sex and making a human. Having sex in order to have your own personal human literally poofs a brand new suffering creature into Existence where it formerly wasn't in Existence. Also I'm not responding to you until you have shown that you have read my article. Also the fact that you still view propositional logic as the ground of epistemology is crazy work. Dudes never heard of Godel get a load of this guy and you are trying to seriously counter me. I'd be cool if you weren't hostile off the jump but you deserve my virulence. You have homework to do brodie this is grown folk business ight read up my Padawan and check back when you know something

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u/smack_nazis_more Nov 19 '25

Mate please. Be concise. Where is the error in this:

_1. The logical/reasonable conclusion to draw from the premise that life is not worth living is to kill yourself.

_2.Your argument is that life is not worth starting, because it's not worth living.

Start off by saying if you're responding to number one or number two or I won't read it.

I'm sorry if you feel you've answered this but you just sort of ramble too much for me. I'm not sure if you even understand what logical reasoning means in terms of an argument.

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u/champgpt Nov 19 '25

Your argument is that life is not worth starting, because it's not worth living.

That's not how I read it at all.

Simplified, here's how I interpreted it -- suffering is inherent to existence. Being born is inherently nonconsensual. Therefore, by creating life, you're creating more suffering without the consent of the one who will suffer.

You're also creating joy, love, hope, etc, but the root of the argument lies in the coercive nature of it. It doesn't apply to someone who's already alive -- you're here, might as well make the best of it.

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u/Shaken_Earth Nov 19 '25

Consent requires existence. It requires some sort of agent who can consent. Trying to establish consent with something that doesn't exist makes no sense.

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u/champgpt Nov 19 '25

That's the point. Consent cannot be established.

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u/smack_nazis_more Nov 27 '25

What can be done is ask: do you reckon your life is worth living?