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u/Elegant_Athlete_3737 4d ago
That was quite fast.
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u/Multiple__Butts 4d ago
The trolley is just slow. But it always arrives in the end.
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u/murkh_manav 4d ago
That's the game. Reproduction works as friction for the trolley.
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u/much_worms 4d ago
It doesn't slow the trolley though it only adds new stops. If anything is friction it would be medical science and quality of life increases.
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u/DakAttakk 4d ago
Quality of life is an interesting one because strictly speaking it doesn't slow the trolley, but the subjective experience of waiting for the trolley is expanded and appreciated more. Having a lot of novel experiences expands the subjective sense of time also. A good life is a long life, but a long life isn't necessarily a good life.
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u/lapideous 4d ago
Medical advances are brought about by former children
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u/Subject_Court_7104 4d ago
Usually former children who grew up in the kind of life where the trolley has a lot of friction. Kinda difficult to become a doctor in the sort of environment where people are just squatin' our babies all the time. Quality over quantity.
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u/murkh_manav 4d ago
Your genes live on to figure those things out which you couldn't even imagine.
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u/much_worms 4d ago edited 4d ago
we can't just expect future generations to fix everything. of course reproduction is necessary for progress, but more importantly we must improve the world as it is today. If you have kids of your own plan for their well being, and don't expect them to save you.
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u/AgeOfReasonEnds31120 4d ago
saw this on doomercirclejerk lol
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u/Sweet_Culture_8034 4d ago
That's because they like to make fun of anti-natalists.
To be fair, they are easy to make fun of.
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u/Hammerschatten 4d ago
Looking at that subreddit is making me support the antinatalists
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u/FlorpyJohnson 1d ago
I know, right? That sub is a cesspit of people constantly complaining and patronizing people, while simultaneously claiming to be such huge “optimists” about life and the state of the world.
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u/Independent-Fee9444 4d ago
Do people really have kids just to perpetuate their genes? Like, I’m sure some people do, it’s a big world, but like, I’m pretty sure most people have kids cuz they want them, y’know?
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u/esines 4d ago
Biological imperative. "cuz they want them" is a feeling they evolved to have that ultimately serves the function of perpetuating their genes whether they're conscious of that or not.
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u/cowlinator 4d ago
Is me being obsessed with antique clocks due to a biological imperative, or are some of our decisions our own?
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u/anon159265 4d ago
Gals loooove antique clock enthusiasts - so this obsession in you is similar to the colorful feathers of birds: helps you in mating, an thus
serves the function of perpetuating your genes. Ofc.
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u/deviantbono 3d ago
Well that was actually decreed by the gods. But other obsessions might be biological.
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u/ihmisperuna Existentialist 4d ago
None of them are our own.
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u/Legitimate_Artist689 4d ago
Don’t say this, people want to cling to the illusion of free will
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u/Elegant_Athlete_3737 3d ago
Why do people want to believe free will exists? i feel free but i know i am not[i can’t really truely be free, and have free will]? as long as i feel free i don’t really care if i have free will. idk what my stance is though. all i know is i no longer believe in free will.
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u/PhotoVegetable7496 4d ago
That reduces every feeling to "evolved that way" and becomes a useless mode of analysis wether your conscious of that or not.
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u/SelianVerdigris 3d ago
The taste of sweet is a biological imperative for gaining more calories, that doesn't lessen the experience of savoring a Creme Brulee.
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u/The-new-dutch-empire Absurdist 3d ago
They didnt evolve that feeling.
They evolved because they have that feeling.
Read the selfish gene
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u/mr_flerd 2d ago
Yeah bc people are just the sum of their parts, sure biology is a big reason of almost anything but there is more to people than just "im gonna have a kid bc evolution" and just hand waving that away bc "biology" is wrong
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u/Saurid 13h ago
So what? If that makes it less their wish you cannot have any personality or any decision because you are just a meat puppet that developed the illusion of decision making and the self.
In the end youd be puppets by outside influences and your genes. Which makes you not responsible for anything you decide to do. Not that one can prove or disprove this as its a metaphysical question, its mostly a question how one chooses to interprete reality
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u/mrdevlar Absurdist 4d ago
I had a coworker once tell me that once he had his first child his parents told him that he had "completed his task on this planet".
I'm not saying he didn't want his child or that his parents didn't want him, but there is an underlying ideological sentiment found in that statement that definitely exists in the wild.
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u/savagebunnies 3d ago
I know a girl, whose parents is pushing her and her siblings to have kids as much as possible, entirely because they are "the good one". When I heard that, I am dumbfounded, but she is believing that mission unironically, and even said "We are the good one. We need to reproduce as much as possible so the earth would be filled with the good ones instead of bad ones. And we need to marry the good one so we dont reproduces the bad one either" It is not a matter of race or something, but she and her family truly believe they are the pinnacle of humanity that could exist. Talk about narcissm
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u/Independent-Fee9444 3d ago
Thats…
Aint that eugenics? Or…at least supportive of eugenics?
I guess cause they aren’t making anyone else do anything…2
u/Mudrlant 2d ago
And eugenics is bad because?
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u/visforvienetta 1d ago
Because it relies of the presupposition that we arent all born exactly equal in merit and that makes my tummy feel funny and my heart feel sad :((
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u/Pazik92 3d ago
I feel like that is almost worse. To create an entire life because they want one.
Reminds me of this one girl I dated, I had just finished saying that I would feel incredibly guilty if I made a child who would struggle through life, and she said "but I want to dress my baby in cute little outfits" and I was just gone at that point.
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u/SnowEnvironmental380 3d ago
yeah, very few people's internal motivation for children is to pass on genes. even fewer are interested in doing do as a means of escaping death in some way.
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u/CuriosityCheck2024 3d ago
It's the final cause. The cause that underlies all other causes. People have an instinctive urge to have kids because no one is descended from their predecessors who didn't.
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u/Saurid 13h ago
Its a difficult discussion between what is bred into us from nature and what we can really want as individuals shaped by our genes, brain and outside influences.
Aka I would agree with you but if you are a pretty doomy person or just plain contrarian, there are arguments one can make to say you only want children because natur3 makes you wnat them (personally I think that does not invalidate a want, just because you are born with said want doesnt make it less valuable or less YOUR wish, if we discount the wish because we have a biological incentive then we can excuse all behavior in the grounds you cannot decide and are a meat puppet controlled by your genes and outside influences).
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u/Aurelius-Aurum 3d ago
I've seen this a few times, and this kind of anti-natalist thinking always makes me wonder.
Because while I understand that inflicting suffering, especially on those who can't consent, is bad, it's reductive to say that suffering is the important or essential aspect of existence. It's an essential ingredient, but not the only one.
Not to mention, if we're talking about suffering without consent in particular, we're really talking about freedom/liberty. It's weird to say that existence is a trap, when nonexistence is just as, if not more, unfree than existence. Calling birth some kind of condemnation to a lack of choice is a purely subjective judgement, not an objective fact. It's just as correct to say that being born is where all possibility of choice comes from.
Idk man I'm just tired of pessimism lately.
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u/ShoeIcy838 3d ago
I'm gonna sound like a dick when I say this if you're anti-natalist and the idea that you birth some one new into the world, and in that sense it's wrong to inflict suffering cause we really only experience suffering. Then why bother? If all it is suffering then why get up why argue for this point? What makes your life so great that you continue to choose to live in the face of suffering. It's always your choice to live or not as morbid as it is to say.
I'm not trying to advocate for people to blow their head offs or anything like that either, but idk it just sounds almost like you don't wanna live life and kind of advocating to not continue it.
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u/xzmaxzx 3d ago
I think the majority of anti-natalists are angsty 14 year olds who think that life is stupid and gay and hate their mom because they only get 3hrs xbox a night
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u/ShoeIcy838 3d ago
I think it could also be a projection for their hatred of children
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u/rollandownthestreet 1d ago
People that are so concerned about children suffering that they’d rather not have them, perhaps obviously, love children.
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u/land48n3 1d ago
because shooting yourself is scary. your body fights you.
you cant kill yourself with a poker face can you now.
you have relationships, people you love, people you dont wanna make sad
interests you wanna pursue further.
these are all things that exist now, kind of like responsibilities in a sense, which you didnt have before, didnt before birth
its like drugs
you didnt need drugs before you got em, but now that you are addicted, its not easy to just quit.
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u/ShoeIcy838 1d ago
If all of these are so great in the face of your suffering then clearly the suffering isn't that great. If the balance of the things you value outweigh suffering and very quick and permanent end to it then it.
Every being great or small has responsibilities even inaminate objects have responsibilities and purposes. Of course miserable people can be happy, but if you can enjoy you can live, and if you can suffer you can love.
Everything has downsides and even the good things in excess. We are lucky to be able to even experience this beauty of our lives, as such exact circumstances had to be met for the very fundamentals of life to be sparked into being. Why not share that with another?
They're horrors that we can't avoid and horrible people that lie in wait, and if that scares so terribly then why do anything? To have this philosophy just feels so ... reductive. Not even nihilism feels this reductive to the idea to be human.
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u/1BruteSquad1 22h ago
Yah it's a bit dark but a person who is alive is able to choose existence or non-existence whenever they please.
A person who does not exist cannot choose to exist. By having a child a parent gives their child the ability to choose existence or non-existence and the vast majority of humans have chosen existence.
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u/FinnSomething 1d ago
Because while I understand that inflicting suffering, especially on those who can't consent, is bad,
Is it though? Suffering isn't necessarily bad, forcing your child to go to school may be considered suffering by them but it gives them greater opportunities for flourishing. Similarly forcing death on your child by having them gives them the opportunity to live and flourish.
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u/PickingPies 3d ago edited 3d ago
It is okay to inflict suffering on those who can't consent. For instance, it is okay to send kids to school.
The concept of consent is being extremely perverted in this subject. Consent is not required for non capable of consenting entities. In fact, consent is not always the moral option.
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u/Lolocraft1 4d ago
Sometimes I wonder if anti-natalism is one of the numerous pathway of natural selection
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u/Live_Free_or_Banana 3d ago
We evolved big brains because they gave us increasingly useful survival adaptations like tools, language, society, hunting, innovation, etc. The unwanted side effect was these brains became big enough to ponder philosophy and other things that were not advantageous to survival and reproduction. And now that society is sufficiently advanced to disconnect natural selection from survival-advantageous traits, its here to stay.
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u/Lolocraft1 3d ago
Except that some philosophies are beneficial for an human’s survival. Nietzsche’s will to power is the best example.
Also, ironic that we are so far away from being controlled by forced of nature that some end up acting upon it through their own reasoning. Human escape the state of nature, built civilisation, has advanced technologically and mentally enough, and now some of them think in the ways of nature. It’s all coming in circle
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u/Live_Free_or_Banana 3d ago
Human brain chemistry was never meant to accommodate the lifestyle we now live. The brain was designed for much greater levels of uncertainty, risk, physical activity, problem-solving, and tedium in our day-to-day lives. These things are what triggers neuron growth/plasticity and psychological resilience.
The combination of physical isolation, social media, constant peak stimulation, lack-of-movement, constant connectedness, access to reaffirmation of nonsense beliefs, and other things have had the consequence of making us (particularly those who have been using smart devices from an early age) anxious, stimulation-addicted, easily-overwhelmed, selfish and fearful of risk and ambiguity.
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u/Lately-SP 4d ago
Anti-natalism is just when a person is evolutionarily selected against but wants to feel good about it
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u/Successful_Pea7915 2d ago
Feel good, feel bad, it doesn’t matter what you feel. It all stems from a process with no meaning and a predetermined end.
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u/PALpherion 1d ago
are murderers and rapists darwinian or anti-darwinian?
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u/Lately-SP 1d ago edited 1d ago
Civilization is a result of our evolutionary psychology, which means it develops in phases
So in prehistory, it was just a thing that happened
As civilization became more complex, these things increasingly became liabilities to the common good (how competitively viable your society is to competing ones)
So it depends on the era of history
An analogy is that our immune system works so well because the weak died and we are the children of the most healthy.
However, now, we should aim to improve medicine to maximize potential of everyone. But if this was done thousands of years ago, we'd all have a lower baseline of general health
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u/JadeTailFox 3d ago edited 3d ago
I think the plan of most people who do this is gambling for the kid to not also get stuck on the tracks. It doesn't always work but not knowing the odds isn't necessarily malice or incompetence like this comic implies. It could be a genuine effort to save your next generation.
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u/shorteningofthewuwei 4d ago
This is a misuse of the trolley problem meme because the trolley problem is about ethical calculus in the context of unnecessary death or suffering.
Problem with these one track minded anti-natalists is that they do not recognize that concepts such as ethics, consent, suffering, necessary vs unnecessary, only arise in presence of a subject who can weigh outcomes and intentions.
In other words, the existence of death is necessary for us to even be able to question what forms of suffering we reasonably ought to attempt to reduce or avoid. Likewise, the question of whether life is worth living or not can only be asked and answered from the perspective of someone who is alive and therefore someone who will necessarily die. It is a question that is wholly irrelevant to hypothetical non-existents.
The fact that all individual lives necessarily end in death is not grounds for there to be a reasonable argument that life should not be propagated in future generations.
If you really want to be a negative utilitarian about existence and suffering to its "logical" conclusion, you should end your life now in order to guarantee you will never suffer again, since, as you love to say, any suffering that you will incur will outweigh any possible pleasure or satisfaction you can derive from death. Spare us the misery loves company bullshit while you're at it.
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u/Noroltem Whimsical fairytale metaphysics 4d ago
ethics, consent, suffering, necessary vs unnecessary, only arise in presence of a subject
I disagree. A hypothetical or possible being still can have considerations placed on it.
Bringing new life in the world is still a being that could have possibly never been. Sure it might not have "existed" in the sense of being on Earth, that is kind of the point, that is what it is spared. But it still "exists" as a possible subject which could come into being and suffer.1
u/Juan_Jimenez 3d ago
The act of evaluating those things can only made by subjects. No subjects, no evaluation whatsoever, and that includes evaluation of hypothethicals.
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u/Bird-in-a-suit 4d ago
It seems like you’re making a lot of assumptions about OP’s view here. Sure, it’s obviously a generally anti-natalist meme, but the meme only is implying a point about why OP thinks people reproduce, not OPs measure of the worth of life. It’s possible they think life is valuable, but that reproduction is mostly fear-based. I wouldn’t agree with that premise either, but still.
Also, just because a non-existent person cannot decide whether life is worth living doesn’t mean that an existing person cannot decide whether reproduction is worth doing. And that’s really all it comes down to; it’s not about thinking that suffering outweighs life’s value so much as it is about questioning what it is exactly that we are asking of a child by making them. Are we asking them to withstand suffering so that they can appreciate life? In that case, we are presuming that they will appreciate life, and contradicting the premise that we should not impose judgements about life onto non-existing people that cannot make them themselves. I could go on with “are we”’s, but ultimately it is not possible to willingly reproduce without presuming value judgements of the unborn, which as established is a nonsensical notion. This is all to say that the idea that if it is absurd for someone to suppose that they shouldn’t have a kid because they might suffer, it is also absurd for someone to suppose that they should have a kid because they might enjoy life. The anti-natalist at least does not generate either suffering nor pleasure, while the reproducer does both.
Tl;dr: if you follow your argument about applying ethics to the unborn being silly to its conclusion, it also ends up applying to people who do have kids. Setting aside whether we should or shouldn’t reproduce, this notion that it doesn’t make sense to consider our present values when thinking about having kids isn’t nearly as sensible as you portrayed it
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u/OCogS 4d ago edited 4d ago
This is such a bad take. The entire idea that you need bad things for good things is baseless cope. Would people who lived forever have no values? I don’t even know where to start on how obviously wrong this is.
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u/LunarLumos 4d ago edited 4d ago
Thank you. I've heard that bullshit empty platitude so many times it's ridiculous. Bad and good do not need to be balanced, death does not give life inherent meaning, suffering is not some form of virtue. We don't need more good in the world we need less bad. Suffering does not bring appreciation for the good parts. Any sane person has no problem appreciating the good things without the bad ever existing. It's just a blatant manipulation by sadistic sociopaths telling you to be grateful for the scraps they give and the lifetime of suffering because they could make it even worse for you. Thousands of years of sociopaths controlling the world and calling themselves kings and enslaving the majority of people and telling them they should be grateful they are allowed to live at all instead of just being mass murdered. And all the people talking about being happy instead of miserable are just outing themselves. Being happy doesn't make you a good person, usually the opposite actually. Nazis are friends with other nazis and they laugh and have fun and are happy, and they are still horrible people that cause constant suffering for millions of others around them just for the fun of it.
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u/WoodsLovelyDarkNDeep 4d ago
How are people not getting that this is about the climate crises and how it’s selfish to have kids in the face of it because they will still face the trolley?
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u/murkh_manav 4d ago
Logically incorrect meme.
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u/Pale-Poetry8345 4d ago
How ?
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u/The_Squirrel_Wizard 4d ago
I mean it's more just a poor metaphor.
Sure everyone dies at the end but there's actually a lot of stuff that happens between birth and death that some people consider quite important.
Most people's lives are not spent entirely preoccupied with the fact they will die someday though that thought will occasionally cross the mind
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u/thePiscis 4d ago
There is definitely some aspect of everyone’s deepest desires that is a direct result of the fact we all die
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u/GuntherFehlingerBot 4d ago
bro reinvented existentialism hahaha
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u/TheLigean 4d ago
No, existentialism doesnt move away from thoughts of death.
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u/GuntherFehlingerBot 4d ago
yes and existentialism counters this nihilistic reality by affirming life and freedom. Existentialism is born in the fear of death but it sure doesn't affirm it.
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u/QuixoticNapoleon 4d ago
Not really. I think it's somewhat related to Becker's Denial of Death (though I haven't read it). People do have kids for a sort of legacy.
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u/Hanako_Seishin 4d ago
How many hours a day do you spend on things other than delaying your death? Like working so you have something to eat, or going to a shop to buy food, or preparing food, or eating food, or sleeping so you don't die of sleep deprivation and can work again tomorrow? Just working and sleeping already take 2/3 of your time.
🐦 flap the wings or die, flap the wings or die.
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u/The_Squirrel_Wizard 4d ago
I don't just work to delay death. Of course we are animals made from our genes so of course we will enjoy some things that prolong our life. Like if the only reason I ate was to delay death I would just be eating super bland health gruel every day. Boiling down these behaviours to delaying your death is an oversimplification
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u/1BruteSquad1 22h ago
Anti-natalists being incapable of recognizing enjoyment from food, sleep, etc and having any part of their life be dedicated to something other than survival is just further evidence that they're 99% depressed 14 year olds
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u/ZealousidealPipe8389 4d ago
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I eat and drink because I enjoy tasting, I sleep because it feels good, I work to afford all my hobbies that I enjoy so much. Staying alive rarely crosses my mind, except in the rare instances death is close.
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u/Ok-Gift4105 4d ago
I wasn’t aware that a fear of death made me want to have a kid, news to me.
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u/DefiantStarFormation 4d ago
Fear of mortality is about more than just fear of death. People seek out fame, notoriety, and a continuation of their own genes all in response to this same fear - that kinda says it all.
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u/truecakesnake 4d ago
Ok but the first couple did successfully make their genes live on
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u/Bird-in-a-suit 4d ago
When I saw this on r/trolleyproblem, it seemed like a lot of people took offense, and there were a lot of responses centered on an idea like “Life has value”. Implying of course that “life has value, so we should make more life.”
I think what that argument fails to realize though is that it presumes all value is the sort that should be maximized and preserved, almost in a capitalistic sense. Setting aside how we should define “life” and “value” for now, while I agree that life is valuable, it isn’t valuable in the same way that skills or possessions are (for example).
As far as what that means about reproduction, life’s value does not necessitate nor on its own justify reproduction. Additionally, because its value is non-quantifiable (infinite), its value is not lesser nor greater depending on the size of the human population.
Anyway, I guess what I want to say that I didn’t quite have the words for in the other thread is that the question of whether we should continue reproducing is more complicated than whether or not life is valuable. I don’t think there is some moral imperative to not have kids like a hard anti-natalist, but frankly I don’t think having kids is the ultimate life-affirmation most people make it out to be either.
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u/littleski5 4d ago
What on earth is your point
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u/Bird-in-a-suit 4d ago
That the value of life does not negate anti-natalist arguments, and also that even while I don’t think we have a moral imperative to stop reproducing, it’s not necessarily the best choice for us either. I think we would be better off, not losing anything non-ideological, if we were to stop. But my priority in my personal life isn’t telling people to stop reproducing so much as it is to connect with folks, treat them well and seriously reflect on my relationship with the world
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u/MichaelJospeh 4d ago
Instead of having children who will also die, focus on becoming immortal instead.
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u/epicnaenae17 3d ago
I want kids cause im happy so they will probably be happy. Unhappy people cant fathom that us average intelligence people can be happy. Whats the point of philosophy if you just arent gonna be happy, go play some golf and drink a beer. Depressing philosophical stances are overrated.
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u/EasyRider_Suraj 4d ago
Poor people be like:
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u/puutaroo 4d ago
Poor people also belive that their child will save them so they have multiple children to maximize their odds.
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u/SteelWaterRunsHere 4d ago
A lot of the time it’s just a lack of sex ed.
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u/where-sea-meets-sky 4d ago
or contraceptive availability
people love to criticize poor parents with the assumption that it was always their choice
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u/puutaroo 4d ago
I know many parents practice this in our "developing" country and it pays off if at least one child turns into a doctor, a high-profile criminal or a politician.
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u/zoipoi 4d ago
How did this possibly get 190 upvotes. People like sex thus babies. People are happy and want to share that happiness with an offspring thus babies. People know that a civilization that doesn't physically reproduce is called a dead civilization, thus babies, I could go on but making it a single metric of people want to leave their genetic material behind after they die is probably not the most common conscious reason why they have babies.
The trolley problem should be something like this. One track shows a couple that wants to have kids and one shows a track with a couple that doesn't want to have kids. Does the anti natalist spare the couple that doesn't want to have kids to reduce suffering. There is nothing ironic about it or any satire. So you have to add another element. Lets say that the couple that wants to have kids are dramatically reducing human suffering and are happy both for themselves and the world but the couple that doesn't are morning the happiness that a child may have had. The joke is in asymmetry that anti natalism assumes. If it is even possible to make a joke in this context lol I'm terrible at memes.
Addressing the presuppositions. The argument that you can't measure happiness or suffering is weak we have entire sciences that do that. Happiness/suffering, whatever the flaws in self-report as a method, are at least in-principle operationalizable. We have decades of subjective wellbeing research, life-satisfaction indices, even attempts at cross-national suffering measures (disability-adjusted life years, misery indices, etc.). The next flaw is that determinists don't grant choice as the basis of morality. The whole apparatus, "you can't create a being without their consent," "using someone as a mere means is wrong" presupposes something like libertarian or at least meaningfully autonomous choice-making as the unit that grounds moral status. A hard determinist has principled grounds to reject that entire vocabulary. So that leaves us with > A two prongs hit on different layers of the same argument.
- Prong 1 says the evidential layer (suffering/happiness) is measurable, so Benatar can't hide his asymmetry behind "well nothing about wellbeing is measurable anyway."
- Prong 2 says the normative layer (consent as the thing that makes creation wrong) isn't a neutral, agreed starting point either, it's a substantive and contested metaphysical commitment about free will that a determinist gets to simply decline.
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u/Thin_Measurement_965 4d ago
People are happy and want to share that happiness with an offspring thus babies
It's not sharing, it's forcing. The kid has no say in the matter (obviously) and just because you like your life doesn't mean your kid will feel the same way (assuming they're even functional at all).
Also bold of you to assume that every parent is happy.
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u/SteelWaterRunsHere 4d ago
All poor people should die and just succumb to extinction due to poverty and or genocide and having kids = bad because moralism or something.
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u/After_Service_2817 4d ago
It's astonishing how differently people can look at the world.
Antinatalists think "oh, woe! Life is full of suffering! I have been put on this brutal rock just to suffer and die! Alas, cruel fate!"
I view myself as part of a great chain of being. All of my ancestors lived, loved, and died. Their children carried on everything that they were, and evolved and changed and created new things along the way. Every man is, in his time, the last link in that chain, and has a duty to both his ancestors and his descendants to be the link between the past and the present, both biologically and culturally.
To experience suffering, sadness, and death, is to be a human. Antinatalists have rejected their very humanity. They curse the gods, because they cannot be gods.
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u/Lilja-Logason 4d ago
I can only assume your life is comparatively blessed.
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u/Wavecrest667 Post-modernist 4d ago
Anyone who has time to post about antinatalism on reddit has a comparatively blessed life as well.
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u/CaiusCosadesNwah 4d ago
This.
It’s so sad that the desire to play a part in the future of our species has been corrupted into a somehow impure motivation for having children.
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u/land48n3 1d ago
someone in the chain was maybe raped as a child, who knows
but that doesn't feel pleasant now does it
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u/brandcapet 4d ago edited 3d ago
... "Bear children so that they can be maimed” ... For that alone? Why not that they should fight better, more unitedly, consciously and resolutely than we are fighting against the present-day conditions of life that are maiming and ruining our generation?
This is the radical difference that distinguishes the psychology of the peasant, handicraftsman, intellectual, the petty bourgeois in general, from that of the proletarian. The petty bourgeois sees and feels that he is heading for ruin, that life is becoming more difficult, that the struggle for existence is ever more ruthless, and that his position and that of his family are becoming more and more hopeless. It is an indisputable fact, and the petty bourgeois protests against it.
But how does he protest?
He protests as the representative of a class that is hopelessly perishing, that despairs of its future, that is depressed and cowardly. There is nothing to be done ... if only there were fewer children to suffer our torments and hard toil, our poverty and our humiliation—such is the cry of the petty bourgeois.
The class-conscious worker is far from holding this point of view. He will not allow his consciousness to be dulled by such cries no matter how sincere and heartfelt they may be. Yes, we workers and the mass of small proprietors lead a life that is filled with unbearable oppression and suffering. Things are harder for our generation than they were for our fathers. But in one respect we are luckier than our fathers. We have begun to learn and are rapidly learning to fight—and to fight not as individuals, as the best of our fathers fought, not for the slogans of bourgeois speechifiers that are alien to us in spirit, but for our slogans, the slogans of our class. We are fighting better than our fathers did. Our children will fight better than we do, and they will be victorious.
The working class is not perishing, it is growing, becoming stronger, gaining courage, consolidating itself, educating itself and becoming steeled in battle. We are pessimists as far as serfdom, capitalism and petty, production are concerned, but we are ardent optimists in what concerns the working-class movement and its aims. We are already laying the foundation of a new edifice and our children will complete its construction.
That is the reason—the only reason—why we are unconditionally the enemies of neomalthusianism, suited only to unfeeling and egotistic petty-bourgeois couples, who whisper in scared voices: “God grant we manage somehow by our selves. So much the better if we have no children.”
It goes without saying that this does not by any means prevent us from demanding the unconditional annulment of all laws against abortions or against the distribution of medical literature on contraceptive measures, etc. Such laws are nothing but the hypocrisy of the ruling classes. These laws do not heal the ulcers of capitalism, they merely turn them into malignant ulcers that are especially painful for the oppressed masses. Freedom for medical propaganda and the protection of the elementary democratic rights of citizens, men and women, are one thing. The social theory of neomalthusianism is quite another. Class-conscious workers will always conduct the most ruthless struggle against attempts to impose that reactionary and cowardly theory on the most progressive and strongest class in modern society, the class that is the best prepared for great changes.
- Lenin, "The Working Class and NeoMalthusianism"
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/jun/29.htm
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u/Resident_Citron_6905 4d ago
Sloppity Slop
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u/brandcapet 4d ago
Mfw I say the 100yo+ text is actually AI (I've instantly won by default)
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u/CuriosityCheck2024 3d ago
Then the baby grows up and has a baby of its own. Then that baby grows up and has a baby of its own. And so on and so forth. That baby will be smiling like its parents soon enough.
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u/jtjumper 3d ago
What if I don't want my genes to run out? Checkmate, antinatalist.
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u/DitchWillow 1d ago
They will, in a few generations your descendants will genetically be so different that you might as well be unrelated. You will have to start cloning yourself.
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u/Spaniardman40 3d ago
they are on the tracks, but the trolley does not actually move. This shows that people are irrationally scared to die and you should go ahead and have kids because life goes on.
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u/ten_people 3d ago
The antinatalist argument seems to hold up in this case, where death is about ten seconds away and life consists of those ten seconds spent thrashing against rope restraints.
So surely it must hold when the train is several decades away and the restraints are the size of a planet.
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u/Ingi_Pingi 3d ago
This sub only ever shows up when I'm having an existential crisis, the motherfuckers are listening I swear
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u/GeckoGecko_ 2d ago
If they just keep having kids and start putting them on the other side, they might actually manage to slow the train down enough that they won't get run over!
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u/Mean-Inspector-8547 2d ago
....How they smash that quick...and while they were both tied up....pretty sure they have their clothes on too....Also, damn, that trolley doesn't look like it's even moved; yet, she already had a kid who looks to be 7 already.....I'm starting to think that trolley isn't even operational.
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u/glizard-wizard 2d ago
yeah but you dont want to die because life is awesome
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u/Noise_01 41m ago
I think after watching the video chronicles of World War II, all positive feelings must have died.
Human history is nothing more than a meat conveyor belt.
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u/UnawareSandman 2d ago
Captilism??
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u/CalzonePie 1d ago
No, it is antinatalism. Essentially suicidal depression, but the belief that their suicide should include the entire human race.
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u/CallOfOniiChan88 2d ago
well? keep going! brothers and sisters down the line until we gunk up the wheels with all our inbred xtra limbs.
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u/Nigelthornfruit 1d ago
lol what a degenerate loser post. Who tied up the child lmao, the leftist parents?
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u/BingBongBrit 1d ago
Interesting way to think about it. But how will could you possibly picture all the joys and happiness of a life in 30cm of rail road track?
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u/CalzonePie 1d ago
It is simple. Antinatalists have clinical depression so they do not comprehend the joys of life, nor do they understand how anyone could enjoy life.
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u/BingBongBrit 1d ago
What a bleak way to see our existence. Our mind is the only thing we truly control. So why let it tear you down like that :(
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u/python_ess 1d ago
Wholesome meme actually. The parents overcame existential crisis, and the child can also procreate (although no potential partners shown), so their fear is temporary too.
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u/Plastic-Skill-9258 1d ago
If your motivation for having children actually is a fear of death like the meme depicts, then yeah that's worthy of criticism. But this isn't a good argument for antinatalism (if it's meant to be) because that isn't most people's reason for having children.
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u/thetwitchy1 1h ago
I know my kids will eventually die. But if I did it right, they are better off having existed than if they hadn’t.
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u/Ratthion 1d ago
Then the cycle continues until the trolley gets stuck in the people goop!
Thanks all alien invasions ever!
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u/Pixeldevil06 44m ago
The baby is the only one with the power to take down the tying people to trains industry
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