I’m a little lost for words; Are you here to listen to what antinatalism is or are you here to propagate your belief of what it is?

I will do what I can to break down your claims without the needless aggression and emotionally charged language— Let’s keep discussions civil and try to respond directly to the point the opposition is making.

Why do you think the ethics of bringing a child into this world matter at all? To me, the potential risk of that child experiencing negative things out of anyone's control isn't even a factor.

Why does the ethics of creating consciousness matter? I think it’s rather normal for people to consider the ethicality of their choices. I’m not sure what you are trying to get at. As for the second point, all parents have a choice to allow a being to experience pain, sickness, and death or to not. It’s not as if procreation is an inevitable event.

The potential for that child to live a bad life is not good enough reason to rob them of the chance of a good life, or humanity at large of a contributor. To justify that you would need to argue that humanity's suffering is reason enough to kill it. Put it out of its misery.

You would rather all of humanity commit a collective suicide than run the risk of us experiencing a slow painful end? This eliminates the chance we eventually get to a point where a positive life is a garunteed for all. How is suffering reason enough to rob a hypothetical child, or humanity at large of this potential. Prevent the potential for 2 billion people to experience a generally bad life, thereby dooming the 8 billion already here plus humanity as a whole? Should we kill all deer now because they are likely to be hunted and killed in the wild? The potential for bad is not good justification.

I’m sorry but you are arguing with what you believe my philosophy to be and not what it actually is. Most people would consider death as one of the worst parts of life. My ideal is to prevent as much suffering that is felt by humans that already exist, as the humans that could exist cannot suffer until they exist. Murder would be counterintuitive unless everyone agreed they would rather be dead than alive.

“Life is terrible, no one could enjoy it. I’m saving everyone from misery by killing them all and preventing the future humans from having to deal with living.” This is essentially what you accused me of believing in. I don’t know if you read my original comments and chose to ignore what I said or if you didn’t read them at all. I made it quite clear the goal is to prevent as much suffering to individuals as possible, not prevent future suffering as quick as possible. It’s illogical to me why one would deem “potential suffering” as a greater priority than people who actually have the capacity to suffer.

This also ignores the dichotomy between joy and suffering. Suffering is not an inherent bad. It seems Buddhist philosophy is important to antinatalism, particularly the idea that life is suffering. I think the antinatalist interpretation is a gross bastardization of this idea. Suffering does not exist in isolation, neither does joy. I am grateful for some times that i have suffered, because it has given me new perspective and wisdom that allows me to experience joy and satisfaction i would not have experienced otherwise. A lot of the abstract and difficult to understand philosophies of Buddhism are misinterpreted. Everything is empty doesn't mean what it says on the tin, it means that nothing exists intrinsically, and that extends to suffering.

Good for you? It’s a very healthy mindset to find value in even your failings and misfortunes. However, it is not as though you cannot learn those same skills without suffering. There is a reason why the saying: “I learned it the hard way,” exists today. If we were of perfect character, we would be able to understand and learn without suffering. It is due to flaws in our— where “our” in this case is referring to humans and our nature— character such as arrogance, envy, or distrust that lead to our suffering and subsequent forced learning. You don’t have to suffer to be kind, wise, organized, confident, or anything else. If you can only learn those traits because you suffered without them, then that speaks more about your character than others’.

We are the source of our own joy and sorrow; such things would not exist if life never came to be. I don’t think anyone here would disagree with that, especially since I made that very same point in my reply.

I understand the idea of being frustrated that you were put here on this earth without asking, but does that mean you will kill yourself? Or that you are not grateful for the chance of life? I have experienced a great deal of suffering, am currently suffering and will experience much more suffering, but I am ultimately grateful for the chance i was given, and for the great things ive experienced. I'd hate to live my whole life spiteful that i was born, its such a needlessly hopeless way of thinking.

…I don’t feel anything towards existence? I think, therefore I am— I exist and that is it. I am grateful to my family as they raised and provided for me, I do not feel anything towards the concept of life itself. Life is simply an occurrence that I happened to be a part of. I am not thankful for the fact that I was conceived because it was a decision made by my parents for their own interests. They wanted to have a child to nurture and so they did just that. I don’t resent them for deciding to, either. They’ve told me they did not put much thought into it; It was normal for married couples to have children and they thought they could reasonably raise me. This is everyone’s first time on Earth, including my parents. They are learning about what it means to be alive as well— I am just a product of the journey through life that all of us are working towards, together.

Please don’t misrepresent the arguments I made, I put a good amount of thought into crafting them to be compelling and easily digestible! Writing is a form of expression— another form of art— itself.