Over the past few years, I've become a fan of shows like Judge Judy and The People's Court, which are of the "arbitration-based reality court show" specifically. Ya know, cases from small-claims courts around the U.S. brought on national TV for the judge's ruling -- technically it's just "binding arbitration," but who cares, right? Personally, I like these shows for numerous, diverse reasons:

1. The element of mystery and suspense, even if it's far more low-key than your average "whodunnit?" saga.
2. Fascination with the minutiae of law, court procedure, and various legal and juridical technicalities.
3. The judge's own personalities, especially a firebrand like Judge Judy! 😁
4. A bit of smug satisfaction -- schadenfreude, if you will -- in seeing entitled and delusional people get their comeuppance 🤣

Regardless, these shows tend to revolve around the celebrity judges (arbitrators, in a strictly legal sense) hearing grievances and adjudicating disputes -- so as to determine liability and, when warranted, award "damages" to the injured party. In a reasonable amount, of course, which may or may not be to the receiver's own satisfaction!

Either way, like many people here, I tend to bristle at any suggestion that children "owe" their parents anything whatsoever, upon reaching adulthood, either for upbringing and care or for being conceived to begin with! As if any of the latter are some kind of "favor" or "gift," for which the recipient is somehow obliged to provide recompense -- or even gratitude itself?! Nope, not by any means...

To the contrary, if anything, I feel like the act of conception and procreation best considered, especially on a moral/ethical level, as a harm/injury inflicted upon the unwitting child who never asked to be born. Who never had the chance to choose, in the first place! Because s/he has now been thrust into the realm of life and existence, fated -- nay, condemned! -- to spend the next several years, possibly 8+ decades, in the perpetual cycle of "eat, shit, work, sleep" until the end. Granted, replace "work" with "go to school" before adulthood, but I believe my general point still stands...

And barring the controversial "self-deletion" option, if one even reasonably has that as a personal option, one must constantly exert oneself in service of that cycle; after all, if I did not exist, then I would not have to deal with it, now would I? As such, for the moral/ethical offense of foisting the whole "life" burden upon someone who never had the option to opt out, I see the post-birth care and nurture from parents as "damages paid" to the child, in (flawed and inadequate) compensation for the moral harm/injury they inflicted by procreating.

Thoughts and opinions? Am I at all being reasonable here, or am I full of shit? You decide! 🙏

So, I was watching this debate between David Benatar and Jordan Peterson where it is said that life can't be described as a sum total of pain and pleasure.Life is worthwhile if pleasure exceeds pain and vice versa. But then there are other experiences that can't be attributed to arithmetic operations of pleasure and pain. So what's there beyond pleasure and pain? Every experience at the end of the day is either pleasure or pain..

You can’t even just do nothing because staying alive in itself costs money. If I pitch a tent somewhere in the woods I’ll be evicted because there isn’t a plot of land that doesn’t belong to someone. I want to grow my own food but can’t because I don’t have a garden. Life feels like a prison sentence, and it probably is, so I’ll have to work to get paid to stay alive to be punished until the very end. Thankfully though, I’ve decided to stay childless for life so when I leave this prison, the door will hang open, and no one will be put behind bars ever again.

2 And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive. 3 But better than both is the one who has never been born, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.

Because my kids could turn out like Donald Trump.*

Because my kids' kids' kids' kids' could turn out like Donal Trump.

Because my kids might have to suffer one day under someone like Donald Trump.

Because there are kids -- humans -- today who will suffer under Donald Trump.

(*Magas, just insert Kamala Harris instead. I won't agree with you, but the point stands).

I am antinatalist because I understand what is possible -- what has happened in the past, what is happening again, and what will happen in the future. Because humans never change. And people never learn.

(EDIT: Because people are already missing this. It's one reason of many, not the only one. Can't believe I have to explicitly say "is one reason of many" vs "is the only reason" when any reason that relates back to any never-ending cycle of suffering should be enough.)

I know it is early for voting data, but there is already a lot from exit poles based on age / race / and other stuff. But I can't find a break down of the voting results split between parents and non parents.

any leads?

Let's imagine, in this hypothetical magical world, that people CAN actually be informed of the risk of life and we CAN ask them for consent, before creating them, would this make it moral to procreate?

Because I have this feeling that it's still "not really moral", according to Antinatalism, because even informed consent can still cause suffering, regret and hatred of life, if you are unlucky.

But some people say as long as we have their consent, then it's ok, because they "asked for it."?

View Poll

I am not AGAINST births and having children. Heck, I did that myself. I am just not PROnatalism. Reminds me of the PROlife vs ANTIlife debate. Having children is very hard and expensive and takes a lot of effort and is not for everyone so it needs to be done with great care and thought. I think I am more "if you want to have kids, good we will respect and support you and if you don't want kids, good we will respect and support you." What is important to me is that children be brought into a caring and loving family that wants them and will sacrifice to raises them to be good humans.

Popular amongst the manosphere bozos is the quote. Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times. This quote ignores that life is always hard and is a perfect example of the positivity bias humans have toward the “gift” of life. After all think about all the broken people that have resulted from “hard times”. It’s the typical glorification of suffering people for whatever reason LOVE! We live among sadist I tell ya. It’s like when people say bullying builds character when in reality it creates misanthropist like myself.

Not everyone had a regretful childhood. I feel very sorry for those who have, I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. But to project your distaste of life from your negative early childhood experiences is wrong. You are also feeding directly into a philosophy that is meant to depopulate and destabilize the world. Seriously, what good would come from human life being wiped off of planet earth? I know humans aren’t perfect, but do you think other animals live in some sort of utopia where they all get along?

Life necessarily includes some suffering. Unfortunately more for some people, for some unknown reason that only God or the universe knows. To think that life is not worth bringing into this world because they might experience some suffering is wrong. Humans are incredibly adaptive and resilient. But even the “perfect life” involves some degree of suffering (e.g. the tale of Buddha).

Just my two cents. And in my opinion, this is a propaganda sub. Remember that Reddit is owned by a Chinese company, but used mostly by Westerners.

Also, do you believe that no one should have children or just that population needs to gradually decline? I ask because I am not sure if anti-natalism is fundamentally self destructive or if it just sounds that way due to imprecise understanding of the position.

Caring, rational people who may actually be good parents will have less kids, while conservatives and the like will keep popping them out like candy regardless and raising more racist, sexist, selfish people. In the next few generations, what kind of population will exist? That’s my dilemma.

"Given the fact that the same brain that produces the sensation of anguish also produces the experienced desperation to avoid the exact anguish being produced by the system, this DNA system is the most fundamentally malignant and insidious form of entrapment even possible."

~ Efilism Wiki

I absolutely get terrified at the mere thought of having to go through all this shit again. One life is more than enough. Now imagine you have to go through thousands. Or, even infinite! Does anyone else feel anxious about this?

It's not ethical to raise children in Fascism, get vasectomies and tubes tied

*Recent edits were to clear up semantics*

*This should be the last edit; I don't know how much clearer I can get*

Sheesh.

This does not apply to all breeders. I never said it did. I just said "breeders." Not "all breeders."

To clarify.....

My question is SPECIFICALLY is aimed ONLY at the breeders who would answer: "I would decline and MY REASON that I would decline the offer is BECAUSE of the fact that I AM SCARED of the disease."

Imagine a scenario where you are really, really in the mood for a piece of gum, and you were in a room where there are 100,000 pieces of gum, and someone offers you a piece, and you KNOW that 99,999 of them are perfectly safe, and that someone put poison in 1 of them, and chewing it will lead to a disease in which you will suffer in pain every day, never being able to experience joy, and guaranteeing you will die in under 8 years.

Provided ALL THREE OF THESE are true:

• You a breeder

• You are someone who would decline the offer

• The ONLY reason you would decline the offer is because of the fact that you are scared of the disease...

Why the fuck would you put an innocent little child at risk of being born with a genetic condition that leads them to suffer in pain every day, never being able to experience joy, and guaranteeing they will die before the age of 8?

Your life doesn’t depend on procreating, just like your life doesn’t depend on chewing gum. Both are just recreational activities.

There ARE breeders for whom ALL THREE are TRUE and THOSE are the people I'm referring to.

IF JUST ONE OR TWO OF THOSE ARE TRUE, THEN THE QUESTION DOES NOT APPLY.

I've suffered a lot. Most humans have, or will in the future if they haven't.

Life is only getting harder and harder.

God and Satan may as well be on the same team, as far as I'm concerned, with the way they've cursed and tormented humanity respectively.

People who have kids are either incredibly sheltered and haven't been through the plethora of brutal horseshit the world has to offer, or aren't thinking straight about their kids' futures.

And I'm a Christian, by the way. I'm sick of my peers saying God will take care of their future children. He didn't take care of me well enough. What makes you think he'll take care of them?

And perhaps God will accuse me of testing him for saying the above, and strike me down in some merciless way. All I feel is fear and a sense of being trapped. How the fuck is God compassionate?

Unfortunately, I've deconverted and been ex-Christian before, and was agnostic at one point, then got unknowingly tangled up in New Age shit, and those experiences only convinced me that there is a God and sadly it's probably the Christian one. So I can't even have the sweet relief of knowing there's no God to answer to and give an account to one day. He's far better than all the others, I gotta say from experience. But frankly, I think he still sucks. Immensely. (note: I'm speaking out of emotion and anger here; there have also been times where I truly felt he was good)

I hate that life is full of pain and I think it's evil to bring children into this world.

I hate that my parents enrolled me into this shit. I would have rather not been born than to live in dread of all the painful days ahead, on top of suffering the existing pains I'm going through.

And I love to see it

So, I was having this deep conversation with a friend the other night. He’s always been hardcore on the “children are a blessing” train, the kind who’d say things like “kids are the meaning of life” or “raising the next generation is a privilege.” It used to frustrate me because, from my perspective, bringing someone into this world right now feels borderline unethical, given the state of things. But for the first time, he was the one questioning the idea of having kids.

I could tell he was shaken. We talked about everything from climate change to the economy, to the never-ending political chaos, especially now with Trump winning the election again. It’s like he’d finally reached a breaking point where the reality of what kind of future we’d be condemning kids to really sank in.

What really struck me, though, was that he isn’t alone. I’ve noticed more and more people coming around to this line of thinking. It’s like the concept of compulsory antinatalism—where the world itself is pushing people toward a childfree life—is becoming a real, tangible thing. Between inflation, stagnant wages, housing crises, student loan debt, and an increasingly hostile climate (both environmental and political), raising a family seems not just difficult but irrational, if not borderline cruel.

In a way, it’s almost comforting to see people realize that this philosophy isn’t about doom-mongering; it’s about acknowledging reality. Antinatalism is a response to a broken world, and right now, the world is pushing back harder than ever. The “joy of parenting” isn’t so joyful when the world you’d be welcoming your kids into seems to be actively unraveling.

If we truly want to make things better (or, let’s be real, less bad), perhaps it’s time to stop the cycle ourselves. Maybe, by opting out of procreation, we’re giving the earth and ourselves a better chance at some sort of equilibrium, if not in our generation, then in the next few. This world isn’t sustainable long-term, so the logical thing to do is stop feeding it more people to break.

What do you all think? Have you noticed more people in your lives having these “aha” moments too?

They just went with whatever happened. Most children are unwanted. It’s a fact. When I go out I often see parents pushing a pram with one hand while texting on their phone with the other. Zero attention to the child. Glued to TikTok or Instagram or whatever. It’s even worse than walking their dog. At least while they’re walking their dog they give off good vibes and get compliments from strangers. When you’re out with a child people sort of avoid you. Most people, even parents, dislike children including their own. They’re just stuck with them so they’ll have to learn to just live with it, and go off the rails when they reach the end of their tether. I see it all the time.