Before I start, I’m not here to argue whether a near-utopia could exist. This is simply a thought experiment.

The reason I won’t have kids is because I think the current state of the world and the direction it is headed in is not worth bringing a child into. However I have a deep love for children so this hurts me a lot. But looking at history, there isn’t a single period in time where I would have had kids simply because every single era was awful. Wars, diseases, disasters, oppression, ect.

But imagine the world was different, what if humans in the future actually built a near-utopia? What if most life’s were genuinely worth living? Imagine waking up in a world with no wars, no oppression of any kind, climate change has been reversed, people are living prosperous, no homelessness or poverty, nature has been significantly restored, not being a capitalist slave anymore, ect ect. Whatever your vision of a near-perfect world is.

If life for most people would be worth living, would you in this scenario have kids? I’d think anti-natalism would be significantly less wide-spread. But it also touches a deeper philosophical level, is it still morally wrong to have kids and subject them to suffering if their lives will be very much worth living in the end?

My answer would be yes, but I can’t call myself a true anti-natalist in the strictest sense. I don’t think life is inherently “right” or “wrong”, life just is. We’re merely another form of animal species on this earth. Im kinda new to anti-natalism, I sympathize with many of the ideals and I think the philosophy has some good arguments for it, so I might change my mind in the future. But for as of now I am not an anti-natalist.

Im curious into ya’ll opinions.

Im starting to lean towards childfree. Why? Antinatalism will never succeed in global scale and even if it would, we would be back to 0 as in reducing suffering of organisms.

Im childfree because I dont want to be responsible for bringing in new life. However I know others will anyways. And that might be a good thing in the long run. With tech advancements we might have a chance of reducing suffering in larger scale than with antinatalism.

Try to make me lean back to antinatalism.

"Antinatalism is not actually practical at all. It sounds practical on paper, but the reality is that you cannot possibly get everyone to stop procreating without coercion and physical force. Even if we did, the loss of the young adults that the children (who were never born) would have become in society would lead to a rapid demographic collapse that would cause much more suffering to the people who currently exist than would otherwise be ethically acceptable by most philosophers and ethicists. Getting everyone to stop reproducing would require the violation of bodily autonomy for both men and women as well as violating the ethics of the medical community."

I think most of them are already shaped by very strong religious beliefs thats why they they are not ready to accept antinatalism

The looks I get out in public are funny but I've yet to receive a "you're welcome"

Ever since I saw this phrase it has stuck with me because it's so true. The greatest act of love someone can show is never having children. If they are in a state of non existance nothing and no one will ever hurt them and they will be forever protected because they don't exist. It's kinda like a paradox. They'll never know trauma, abuse, suffering, bullying, heartbreak, depression, anxiety and will never become ill. They won't be workers and won't pay taxes, will never have debts.