A Defense of Antinatalism (Re: Unnatural Vegan)
Вставка
- Опубліковано 26 сер 2024
- Most Childfree people are not antinatalists, as they do not believe or argue that bringing children into the world is morally problematic. Indeed, this is the position of only a small minority of childfree individuals. Antinatalism should be acknowledged to be a philosophy with various (strong) arguments in its defense and a separate subject from childfree living.
In her recent video, Unnatural Vegan starts off with the apparent intent to critique Antinatalism and warn vegans of its supposed dangers, but she does very little other than confuse the two positions while engaging in personal criticism over the lifestyle choices of other specific childfree vegans.
In my defense of Antinatalism, I argue that vegans following the LHP (Least Harm Principle) -- which should be instrinsic to people avocating for veganism, considering that a 100% cruelty-and-death lifestyle is impossible -- should also be childfree/antinatalists.
The video I'm responding to: • Freelee & Durianrider ...
Bite Size Vegan video: • Do Vegans Kill More An...
Dr. Neil Barnard on the addictiveness of food (the odds are stacked against us from birth in a culture that promotes these heavily-marketed foods as part of a normal diet): • Chocolate, Cheese, Mea...
Bill Hicks on having children: • Video
The optimism delusion: www.ligotti.net...
Humans caused 322 species to go extinct: news.discovery....
Other animals aren't the problem: • Domesticating Animals ...
Becker & 'Immortality projects': en.wikipedia.o...
The Myth of Progress: • On Progress - John Gray
Terror management theory: en.wikipedia.o...
Background video used: • All Alone in the Night...
A fantastic rebuttal. NV is anti scientific and anti intellectual
+Maximilien Robespierre Agreed, and I'd now add dishonest to the list. She said she would make a video response to this video, but only addressed it in passing, merely claiming that it was "poorly argued". Ha!
people who aren't antinatalists are either dumb or cruel... life is mostly about suffering and even if your child is happy and healthy you can't predict the future. And in the end everyone dies. How wonderful. If there is a God he is very sadistic.
Well said.
Exactly.
Your statement is idiotic. Anti natalists are misguided at best or just plain is idiotic at worst. Anti natalism is based on an extremely biased and skewed perspective of reality. The vast majority of life isn't suffering and individuals have full control over whether they are happy or not.
If not having kids is selfish, then its the only form of selfishness with no victims to boot. Why its even so strange, that someone involuntarily brought into this world may choose to forgo being guilt-ed into a social narrative of serving the interests of business and the state with their own efforts, when neither business nor the state lifts a finger to really share that burden and have not really given anything to begin with minus a vague sense of security via the law? The idea that its selfish to live a life which you really wish to live and you ought rather live a life of community service, is highly dubious from a personal perspective as well, especially since those who choose to have kids do so NOT because they have some kind of community-bound duty, but because it is their idea of a live worth living.After all thats what as kids we were told: life is great and live it as you please as long you don`t hurt others. Procreation is infused with all kinds of meaning over joy type sacredness injunctions which manipulate people below conscious threshold. In my view there is no purely ethical injunction (no harm done) in a life lived to enjoy lets say natural beauty (whats left of it) and reading in solitude, but a social one, which demands conformism towards its goals with the apparent payback of construed-meanings.
Well said.
Most comprehensive and accurate dissection I've heard regarding UV's claptrap. Nailed it.
Thank you.
It's a shame UV never responded to this directly, but, frankly I'm not surprised.
She's always struck me as someone who needs to see herself as the 'good guy,' but, who doesn't necessarily need to actually be 'the 'good guy', if that makes any sense.
For having a bachelors is philosophy, she's awfully fucking terrible at it. This isn't the first time she's completely misunderstood the terms she's discussing either. See her speciesism video. Thanks for making this, I hope she sees it.
+Marise I remember that! Hopefully antinatalism makes it in her next 'I was wrong' video for 2016.
+Emil Sinclair I forgot about that. I did want to hate her for a long time after she made that video saying no animal products cause cancer. She did eventually retract that as well in that video. So I started to like her again because she is right on a lot issues that vegans get wrong. But the laziness or constant misunderstanding is infuriating I feel like she's going to agree with majority of what you have laid out here, and that's what is frustrating. Excellent video btw.
+Marise When I first discovered her, I got the feeling that she really took it upon herself to be the one Rational-Skeptic-Atheist-Vegan-Superwoman on the tubes. I can't really blame her: on every single one of her videos there is always someone excessively praising her and saying that she is the only voice of reason around here. When people confirm the heroic view that you have of yourself, it's going to be even harder to be self-critical.
I understand why you you were so disappointed in her. The WHO announcement is what changed her mind on the carcinogenic nature of meat, and all they did was review all of the data that was there all along for her to look into. Oh well, no one is perfect!
I'd be surprised if she watched my video at all. I certainly didn't make it for her - I just hope someone gets something out of it. Thanks for watching.
I am a Buddhist and a Vegan. You hit it on the head when you claim UV is just trying to refute the Freelee-Durianrider no kids lifestyle. She wants kids and apparently feels she has to justify it. A clear and unemotional exposition of your topic and Vegan ethics. Clearly the Most vegan position is to adopt not bred. Vegans say this about pets all the time. Of course as a Buddhist i accept the buddha's view that death is not the end of suffering unless craving for existence and non-existence are abandoned.
oh shit... i love your comment, but the end slightly scared me lol. why? bc i've been in a place of somewhat desiring death lol. of course i do not cling to this life, the ego, or any other trivial concerns. but i have been in the way of desiring death. according to your philosophy, my desire for death means that suffering will persist for me even after death. i mean i dont believe this, but it spooked me briefly bc you seem to be of a largely sound mind and i took your words seriously. (by the way, i respect buddhism above just about all other religious/philosophical doctrines, but i don't subscribe to it completely. it has its own issues)
This video so accurately sums up everything UV did wrong with her anti natalism videos. I was on the comment threads trying to point out some of the logical fallacies and she responded with something like 'Anti-natalism is as crazy as KKK and nambla and shouldn't be taken seriously' - WTF? How is anti natalism even in the same universe as either of those organisations?
Plus the hilariousness when she whips out all her anecdotal evidence that her sister is so happy as a parent. Who the fuck cares? UV has spent so much of her videos refuting anecdotal evidence given in defence of meat eating and other things, how reliable can she be as a 'scientific' (read: Has a philosophy degree) voice in the vegan community when she just does away with all reasonable logical principles.
She pretty much broke all her own logical rules in this video, and I strongly suspect it's because she was already pregnant at the time of making this video yet hadn't officially announced it, hence all the silly emotional arguments.
P.S. Please do more videos or podcasts!
Wow, she must have lost a great many neurons due to her pregnancy. It would be hard to make a stupider comment.
Pretty much, someone on the anti natalist subreddit pointed this out and then it made sense. Honestly, I care less that she is pro natalist and more about how.... dumb her video was.
At no point did she actually address anti natalism, she was really just arguing that an indulgent childfree lifestyle is not one that you can both live and claim moral superiority in. Frankly the indulgent, 'selfish' childfree are probably such a small subsect of the general population that they hardly warrant concern, and if they did then surely there'd be more substantive proof of the problem beyond just two UA-cam morons (cough cough Freelee + Durianrider).
Also her other main claim that anti natalism is somehow bad for veganism makes no fucking sense since they're fundamentally similar negative utilitarian philosophies.
AgeJ94 She thinks you can breed veganism into people, so don't ask too much out of her. She hasn't realized yet that ideologies do not transmit through sperm. She'll have a surprise with her kid when she can no longer control the beast. If you check out "Vegan Army Fails" on Facebook, you'll find many stories of vegan parents who are struggling with their kids who are no longer vegan. It's not a pretty sight.
I know, it's quite evident that if you are being logically consistent, veganism and antinatalism are sister philosophies. She mocks the idea and stated that my video was terrible and she wants people to believe that none of my arguments are worth responding to.
I've yet to view this video in its entirety (sometimes prefer to go through links in the description first, etc.)
I know this is an older video, but thanks for posting.
Edit: Doug Stanhope bit was an interesting addition.
Watching the Unnatural Vegan video and your video critique reminded me of a Steven Pinker quote, "Sex and excretion are reminders that anyone's claim to round the clock dignity is tenuous. The so called rational animal has a desperate drive to pair up and moan and writhe."
No matter how intelligent a human being may be in one subject or another they are still at root a blood pumping secreting excreting organism with neurons piled on top. That absurd combination creates sophistic justifications of irrational beliefs and actions.
+TragicEarth From Ambrose Bierce's "Devil's Dictionary":
RATIONAL, adj.
Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.
REASON, v.i.
To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.
REASON, n.
Propensitate of prejudice.
REASONABLE, adj.
Accessible to the infection of our own opinions. Hospitable to persuasion, dissuasion and evasion.
Luckily there are some asexuals too.
even before been vegan I didnt wanted to have babies because of the childfree reasosn and because some of the antinatalism reasons wich is a term I didnt knew before today, after been vegan for years Im happy to find this term because thats how I feel now and those are the reasons I use everytime people ask me when im going to have kids, I said never and people answe "oh you are not ready yet" it piss me off
Another great response video.
Louis CK really uttered such a sloppy statement? Hopefully it was made in jest. His bits on the catch-22s of parenthood and pedagogy always seemed to carry a near 180 sentiment.
16:25 Major pet peeve of mine right here. We're supposed to believe that adoption, *not* famine relief, is the go-to way of doing good with one's freed up resources. It's a classic example of 'commonsense' morality which starts from the assumption that proximity plays a central role in assisting the unfortunate. A dangerously dumb view.
Westerners who dislike children are actually in a *better* position to benefit specific kids who need it the most. All these Folk notions of altruism need to be discredited. Disliking kids simply increases the likelihood that you won't be tempted to help them in any _hands_ _on_ sort of way; sidestepping adoption & soup-kitchens & similar non-occupational extra obligations, which means having an easier time making/saving money... maybe even working tons of overtime if you genuinely enjoy your job. Enter EA. Enter famine relief and the like. Effectiveness.
A westerner who swaps consanguineous parenthood for the non-consanguineous/adoptive kind *still* ends up spending (conservatively) $227K on average to raise a minor from infancy to age 18, just as the consanguineous parent does (and that's excluding public education/healthcare). That $227K spent on a relatively well-off minor in the west would've alleviated far more suffering, just in terms of purchase-power, had it been allocated toward the global poor via: www.effectivealtruism.org/
So any conscientious, full-time employed westerner who finds kids annoying to the point where he's unwilling to adopt, is a godsend for any kid who rolled a Cosmic Snake-Eyes.
The $227K stat: www.jefftk.com/rachels-2013-immorality-having-children.pdf
+AntiBullshitMan Yep. I was paraphrasing, but here's the Louis C.K. video (around the 1m10 mark): ua-cam.com/video/KJI8wLao1yY/v-deo.html
You make excellent points. Adoption is certainly not the most effective thing we can do if we're committed to reducing suffering primarily.
Great Breakdown, UV needs to actually try to refute this video. Not dodge it.
Every single lesson in school should start with putting Stanhope's routine on overpopulation on screen.
The most guarded secret of all time: "One acre can feed only a limited number of people" (Thomas Robert Malthus 1766 - 1834).
Overpopulation is a myth dude.
A great video. More people should see this!
This was such a great argument! Well done. I'm coming to the realisation that I'm kind of an anti natalist too...I think adoption is clearly the more ethical option as you are raising a child/children (I kind of want to adopt siblings maybe) which would otherwise be left in the adoption system, and not raised properly, rather than just add another human into the world because of your own desires. TBH I see raising your own child as both clearly a sacrifice but also incredibly selfish, honestly it is, there is no imperative in this day and age to pass on genes, when we have 7.5 billion already (and counting!) and for a lot of people it is about the fact that they have made something out of their own genes and that it looks like them...etc Honestly I'm going to give adoption a good go, and I'm pro-plant based lifestyle. I will try and apply for adoption later in life, and hopefully adopt a few so I can make a considerable difference. The way she puts it like "you'll never adopt anyways" annoys me. Meh, this whole thing turned me off Swayze if I'm honest. Her attitude dealing with people about this topic kind of says she has a considerable emotional bias towards passing on genes...
Totally agree with you. Good to know you'll choose to adopt and encourage a plant-based lifestyle.
Yeah, she's totally turned me off too. I've actually downloaded an extension to block her awful thumbnails/videos from the "suggested videos" bar because I am so annoyed with her now.
26:53 gave me a good laugh. The god delusion? More like the optimism delusion...
Another great video.
+MFM Thanks!
THE BEST EXISTENCE IS NONE EXISTENCE.
KNOW LIFE, KNOW PAIN.
NO LIFE, NO PAIN.
There is nothing worse than having a child.
Very cool video. By far the best thing I saw on antinatalism.
Brilliant video! Thank you for speaking out for the planet and for all the existing children waiting to be adopted!
+Lyra Alves Thanks for watching.
Dear " N" , I'm very impressed with the Buddhist Doctrine and its practices but choose the Christian way because it somehow gives me a little more hope. I must agree that bringing more people into this existence is not only selfish but cruel.
Excellent video and excellent response. Very clear and thoughtful. I like that you mention TMT and Ernest Becker, and that procreation can come from a sense of trying to unconsciously (or consciously) attain immortality. You won't survive, but your genes will. I also think thats closer the case. I've seen other people in the AN community just saying "people don't desire kids, they just desire sex", and kids are just the outcome of people having sex, and I wonder if thats perhaps a bit simplistic..? Not sure what you think? Its like that for a lot of animals though, I'm sure.
+Andreas Moss Yes, it's simplistic. It misses the point that unlike those other animals, we have a symbolic life that influences our motives, not just biological urges and instincts.
8:05 holy moly, that was epic.
Yeah, I do not remember any staunch Antinatilist views from Vegan Gains either.
🔥💯👍
this is very unique philosophy
Don't agree with everything, but with a lot. Good work though.
+cacahouete ch Well, that's a first! thanks. I don't want people to agree with me on everything, just making them think is desirable enough.
Good video, but you're trying analyse a woman's logic - a future exercise. She's typically all over the shop and as you highlight, she contradicts her viewpoint.
On another point. And do not wish to be antagonistic; but please check out Sv3rige's yt channel. He really is anti vegan. He does lots of X vegan interviews, who's health has perished. He also has made a four part series titled: 'Veganism - The Epitome of Malnurishment'
Plus he has made the first ever anti vegan documentary, explaining how veganism is the DIEt of the globalist's Agenda 21; fitting into The New World Order agenda.
Great work promoting Antinatalism.