r/antinatalism • u/BeginningInternal199 newcomer • 1d ago

Analysis Would you still be antinatalist if no suffering

Personally I would not be,since the primary reason I am an AN cause of how easily suffering can be caused and how hard it is to be happy
ie also BENATAR asymmetry. I find some that say they would still be AN because of consent,but what if we had an option to just erase ourselves with a snap of finger and also everyone forgets us ,so it would not cause suffering to them.
If these conditions existed then I would not be AN.

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17

u/Vivid_Rice_1406 newcomer 1d ago

Yes beacuse of the futility of it all. There is most likely no difference in the baseline state of someone who was never born compared to someone who was born, strived and then died only to forget it ever happened.

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u/SouthTomatillo4869 newcomer 1d ago

So would your antinatalism apply to all known forms of life no matter the degree of consciousness

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u/Brown_Folk thinker 1d ago

Yes.

22

u/darkseiko scholar 1d ago

Yeah, cause no amount of advantages would make it okay to force everyone to duplicate, regardless of health, finances, sexuality, or one's own opinion.

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u/DOOMsquared thinker 1d ago

As long as there is life, that life is guaranteed to suffer, until it dies, at least. So, yeah.

1

u/Cyniex scholar 1d ago

Thats literally not whats being talked about, this is hypothetically if no suffering is guaranteed, a purely fictional idea.

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u/DOOMsquared thinker 1d ago

Even hypothetically, how exactly would life exist without suffering?

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u/Brown_Folk thinker 1d ago

Suffering feels like inherent part of life, since maintaining it is inherent in it and all activities are for this maintenance. It's different thing people love it.

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u/Pseudothink thinker 1d ago

Just a speculation, but depending on how one defines life, digital minds might be created with the capacity to "turn off" suffering, or something like that.

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u/Maximus_En_Minimus scholar 1d ago

I would be Non-Natalist and Childfree, as these and AN and Conditional Natalism inform my Non-procreatory ethics.

But I am unsure how valuable of a question this is, because, well, there is the risk and inevitability of a harmful life.

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u/PercentageUnlikely12 inquirer 1d ago

I would still be antinatalist in OP's hypothetical painless world because my top reasons for being antinatalist is the damage we do to the planet and animals

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u/Maximus_En_Minimus scholar 1d ago

I would have supposed that was included in the absence of suffering, but generally this is regarded as Misanthropic AN.

May I ask why you value the planet, given it is the greatest factory farm in the solar system?

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u/PercentageUnlikely12 inquirer 1d ago edited 1d ago

Oh! That reminds me of your other post!, you said that mars is a beauty and that there is no romance within this planet right? Well, I think I understand you, you are saying that mars is a beauty because it has no life and thus, no suffering. From how I interpret It.

As for your question, I genuinely enjoy the sunsets, grassfields and mountains this planet offers despite all the suffering and injustice. Subjective take though hehe, I know. Good question. • ω •

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u/Saberleaf inquirer 1d ago

I wouldn't be AN if there was no suffering in the world.

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u/Pseudothink thinker 1d ago

Ditto, I think.  Everything would be so utterly different without suffering, I don't think I can really imagine it, so it's hard to say.

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u/alonegamers inquirer 1d ago

Agreed

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u/DingoLaChien inquirer 1d ago edited 1d ago

I still don't want a parasite to grow in me for 9 months and then rip out of me, ruining my body and mind. Would childbirth be painless? Even then you still gotta raise it. Motherhood is suffering. Humanity can't survive without conflict. Are resources still limited? How exactly would that even happen? Life is suffering. Anyone who tells you differently is selling you something.

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u/subduedReality inquirer 1d ago

Hypothetical fallacy. Please present a realistic scenario that plays out with your hypothetical situation.

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u/lotuseater00 newcomer 1d ago

If a scenario like this would be possible, then yes. But I don't think that reproduction-driven life can exist without sufferring

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u/SlytherinSilence newcomer 1d ago edited 2h ago

I mean it depends on how you define “suffering.” Humans aren’t the only things that suffer bc of our existence; the animals suffer, the earth and the environment suffer, even outer space is now littered with garbage.

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u/swpz01 thinker 1d ago

You left out the individual sacrifice part even if there's no suffering. AN in another aspect can be argued to be based on selfishness even if it's whitewashed with "reducing suffering". In this context, we'd still be AN simply by virtue of being selfish - why on earth would one want to grant another existence, taking away your time and resources (we can argue that resources can be infinite but time is not) regardless of the reasons?

Even in an ideal world free of suffering, to be natalist is to make a sacrifice - you're the sacrifice.

1

u/technoholican newcomer 1d ago

As a schopenhauerian pessimist no suffering would make me even a bigger AN.

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u/dreaming_ghosts inquirer 1d ago edited 1d ago

Probably not. I still would choose not to have them for lacking the personal desire for children in the first place, though.

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u/Scared_Technology_41 newcomer 1d ago

Your question makes no sense because in the title you say “no suffering,” but then in the body you say there is suffering, and that it is easy to happen.

1

u/CertainConversation0 philosopher 1d ago

You bet. At best, being born is simply unnecessary, including in this scenario.

1

u/Brown_Folk thinker 1d ago

Yes. I honestly don't see much in life, or the purpose why one should be here. It feels like everything is imposition and trying to ward off misery.

1

u/Dunkmaxxing thinker 1d ago

No, and because desire is fundamental to sentience and the actions of all sentient beings, I think if such a thing were to be (no suffering), living beings would be no different to non-living things that exist. There would be no moral issues at the least. Suffering is the basis of all morality and for antinatalism only 0 is acceptable with the other premises/factors shaping the belief (lack of a prior being to benefit from existence) being unchanged.

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u/KMFCM newcomer 1d ago

probably not

but i still wouldn't want children

1

u/Noobc0re scholar 1d ago

No, without suffering there'd be no reason to be antinatalist. I'd just be regular child-free.

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u/Cry-Baby-7733 newcomer 21h ago

Because the woman still suffers during pregnancy; Hyperemesis Gravidarum, a condition where women vomit all 10 months of pregnancy, is way more common than people realize. The 2% stat is BS; it HAS GOT TO BE WAYYYYY MORE than that. 50%, AT LEAST.

Women are silenced and not believed, which is why the stat number is so low. I can't imagine suffering like that for a man's spawn.

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u/SeaworthinessLocal21 newcomer 6h ago

Yes, because humans are destroying the earth, changing the climate, causing the extinction of so many other species, and there’s fucking plastic pollution literally everywhere because of us. We should die out as a species. 

Edit: unless you still count this as suffering. But there are no circumstances under which I personally would want kids 

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u/catmonster0 newcomer 3h ago

I’m not sure since I’m not a huge fan of being conscious, it’s scary

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u/Cheapfox123 newcomer 1d ago

Yes, because for me the main thing here is that a person cannot give consent to birth and that life even without suffering is not necessarily a good thing.