Lately I’ve become quite sympathetic to #antinatalism.
And yet I have two kids, and if I were to start over again I think I would decide to have kids again.
How’s that possible?
(thread)
First of all, I’m not that convinced that antinatalism is true. I still have major doubts or objections. At the same time, my instinct is to want to have children.
I don’t think that is hypocrisy. I usually want to be as rational and detached as possible. But when reasons seem weak or risky, and intuition plus tradition plus social norms plus advice from those close to me point somewhat strongly in the opposite direction, the gut can override the brain, and I think that’s indeed reasonable.
Second, even though I think that life is mostly #suffering, including human lives, that is just a generalisation, an average. Some lives one can expect to be miserable in all likelihood, while others are set to be as good as possible — even a net positive.
I live in one of the most prosperous countries on earth. I earn well above the average salary here, and so does my wife. We are relatively healthy and free of major health conditions. No history of relevant communicable diseases in our families, no major mental health issues, addiction, or tendency towards violence. We eat reasonably well, we are calm, we don’t spend recklessly.
I expect our children to have lives that are better than the average human being’s. Perhaps even lives worth living, after all.
I identify as a #consequentialist and a (negative) #utilitarian, I suspect that existence is probably not worth it because of the asymmetry of #qualia, and yet I have no intention of ending my own life (and I think that’s rational). Why?
When we’re #children we don’t really understand what suffering is, and we don’t even know that living is a choice. So we live.
#Teens and young adults famously tend to get closer to one of two poles: either they’re disappointed, miserable, or lost (some of those do end their lives), or they are having a great time: they’re at their prime, disease and pain are unknown to them, they discover pleasures, etc (those are happy to live).
We #adults are usually so entangled in relationships by this stage of life that even if/when we decided that non-existence beat existence for us, we wouldn’t want to cause more suffering to those who love us and those who depend on us. So we (usually) live.
Yeah, that too. I suspect many people understand that not existing is painless, and may actually better than living. But they are prey to status quo bias and to primal instincts for survival, or they fear the actual difficulty and messiness of ending their lives.
Many philosophers think that above a certain level of suffering, it is better not to live. Negative utilitarians, and many others. People committing suicide certainly think so. I think it’s incontrovertible.
/cc @trinsec
Assisted suicide is possible in my country for those people who believe they’re suffering too much to live.
@tripu I think where you don’t really care about your life but don’t take active steps to end your life, but wouldn’t have minded if it ended right there and then, it’s called ‘passive suicidal ideation’. It’s actually common enough I believe, but not always healthy to have.