Antinatalists and antiabortion people can basically act the same in the way they treat adoption like this efficient baby shopping market and you can just buy one or give one up whenever you want to, as if there's this huge stock of "healthy unwanted babies" on the clearance rack.
There was! The modern situation, with its very low rates of children in foster families and almost no orphanages at all, is strange and new. It's not surprising that people aren't yet fully aware of the change.
People on twitter will really be like "you believe in having children? that pales in effectiveness to my strategy, adopting a Walmart" and then not adopt a Walmart
It's not that the kid's life in particular shouldn't exist, it's that life is a tragedy for all of us; antinatalism recognizes this, and adoption is an act of solidarity in light of it.
“Unless the adoptive parents in question have some kind of genetic disease, the idea that it would be wrong for the adoptive parents to bring kids into this fucked up world when there are other kids who need care, necessarily implies that it was even more wrong for people to make a kid who would need to be adopted. I just think it can’t possibly be healthy for kids to grow up with the idea that their existence is wrong.”
Hmm. I’m not an anti-natalist, but I don’t understand this reply to their view. Couldn’t there be cases where a moral proposition is true, but at the the same time unhealthy for young children to hear from their parents?
I agree with Jerry that a lot depends on whether/when you tell the kid. It could absolutely be harmful for a kid to get the message that they "shouldn't exist". But that's because a kid will get an oversimplified understanding of what that means and why. They'll think it means they're bad, or their biological parents are bad, or something like that, but those aren't actual implications of anti-natalism. So if you don't explain your views to them, or wait until they're able to understand it, I don't think it's wrong. There's nothing inconsistent about adopting as an anti-natalist---it could even be altruistic, in that you're trying to give a child a better life than they would have had otherwise (and again, there's nothing about that that's inconsistent with anti-natalism). Any harm would come from the child finding out before they're old enough to understand, so as long as you avoid that, I don't see what would be wrong with it.
>you're trying to give a child a better life than they would have had otherwise
ok heres our disagreement. isn't it most likely counterfactually that the kid would end up raised by someone who is stable enough to raise them & also doesnt think they shouldnt exist?
I think this is just a pun on "shouldn't exist". Antinatalists don't believe in going on a killing spree to put everyone who is currently alive out of their misery. They already have the position that everyone who currently exists should exist and have the best life possible, and what is bad is creating more people. What would be harmful for the child to believe is "it would be better if I didn't exist", what the parents believe is "it would have been a better choice to not create her", but these propositions are different.
Maybe the trick is to be clear that the bio parents did the child a disservice by bringing them into the world and then abandoning them, and brought them into a world with so many problems that they have to deal with now? i.e focusing on "it's wrong that they made you because of how it negatively affected you" rather than "it's wrong they made you because of how you negatively impact the world". Idk much about kids tho, both are probably still hard to hear
For sure, although you could still focus on "it's wrong because of the impact on the future child". But, it depends when you tell the kid about views like that. I think it's appropriate to wait to talk about stuff like that until they're more mature and already have an understanding of the issues in the world. Also, you can focus on the facts underpinning your view rather than the view itself, and gradually explore concepts and info in more depth as they get older rather than effectively only telling them "you shouldn't be here" their whole life. It should be about fostering their understanding and critical thinking (edit: and empathy) rather than making sure they reach the "correct" conclusions
hell, there are adults that aren't mature enough to handle conversations on heavy topics with difficult implications, and I wouldn't talk to them about something like antinatalism either
I think it's very difficult to explain the "proper full on" (ie Benatarian) antinatalist stance that seems to me (definitely not an antinatalist) also fundamental rejection of life itself, or at the minimum pro-non-existence, existentially/mortally pessimistic, and really taken to its rational conclusion, pro-extinction, to a child in a way that maintains the distinction between "it'd better to never been born" and "it'd be better (for everyone) to be dead". I think it's very hard to grasp it on the *individual*, personal rather than abstract level even as a reasonably cognitively capable adult.
So my main concern here wouldn't be the child thinking THEY specifically are "bad" or "burden" but that EVERYONE is and that the optimal solution to life for everyone is to die asap: not necessarily something you want to reinforce eg in a teenager (unless you're pro extinction of course but we're not going to go there presumably).
If the antinatalist in question is more of a tragic realist (life is suffering, but not of negative value overall, we are here so we can do the best to alleviate or transcend this) then this seems like a perfectly reasonable position to discuss with a child once the child is capable of grasping rudimentary abstract thought (it's really pretty Buddhist adjacent after all).
Perhaps the "proper" (Benatarian) antinatalists would be better adopting elderly adults in need of permanent care. Or rescue animals.
It's not that complicated. "There shouldn't be as many people in the world as there are with current technology/resource levels, but I'm glad that you exist and that I get to take care of you while you grow up" is pretty straight forward.
Worth noting, though, that the kind of antinatalists you're talking about aren't uhhh, actually that deeply concerned with suffering. "I am sorry that (presumably mortal) existence was inflicted upon you non-consensually" isn't really child-appropriate, but it's also not something that in my observations most of the kind of people you're talking about seem to consider very much at all.
this is assuming that the kid ij this situation would not be cared gor wo them, instead of assuming they wouldnt be in a situation where "you are a burden on the world" is not a possible interpretation available
To my understand, most of the adoptee pool in the US these days comes from kids whose parents are extremely neglectful if not abusive primarily because of addiction issues, which does get into messed up racial dynamics on all levels very quickly, but to my understand the system has mostly moved away from the worst excesses of the past, maybe even to the point of over-correcting.
There are obviously still places where there are perverse incentives for social workers to do removals, and that absolutely must stop, and non-citizen kids is a whole other terrible ball of wax, but as far as I understand, "the system wants kids as social cannon fodder and so your baby gets snatched unjustly" mostly isn't a thing anymore.
Wait, what is the thing you think they're doing that they believe is wrong? An anti-natalist believes it's wrong to *have* children, i.e. bring new children into the world. They don't believe it's wrong to raise children who already exist.
Antinatalists and antiabortion people can basically act the same in the way they treat adoption like this efficient baby shopping market and you can just buy one or give one up whenever you want to, as if there's this huge stock of "healthy unwanted babies" on the clearance rack.
There was! The modern situation, with its very low rates of children in foster families and almost no orphanages at all, is strange and new. It's not surprising that people aren't yet fully aware of the change.
People on twitter will really be like "you believe in having children? that pales in effectiveness to my strategy, adopting a Walmart" and then not adopt a Walmart
It's not that the kid's life in particular shouldn't exist, it's that life is a tragedy for all of us; antinatalism recognizes this, and adoption is an act of solidarity in light of it.
“Unless the adoptive parents in question have some kind of genetic disease, the idea that it would be wrong for the adoptive parents to bring kids into this fucked up world when there are other kids who need care, necessarily implies that it was even more wrong for people to make a kid who would need to be adopted. I just think it can’t possibly be healthy for kids to grow up with the idea that their existence is wrong.”
Hmm. I’m not an anti-natalist, but I don’t understand this reply to their view. Couldn’t there be cases where a moral proposition is true, but at the the same time unhealthy for young children to hear from their parents?
I agree with Jerry that a lot depends on whether/when you tell the kid. It could absolutely be harmful for a kid to get the message that they "shouldn't exist". But that's because a kid will get an oversimplified understanding of what that means and why. They'll think it means they're bad, or their biological parents are bad, or something like that, but those aren't actual implications of anti-natalism. So if you don't explain your views to them, or wait until they're able to understand it, I don't think it's wrong. There's nothing inconsistent about adopting as an anti-natalist---it could even be altruistic, in that you're trying to give a child a better life than they would have had otherwise (and again, there's nothing about that that's inconsistent with anti-natalism). Any harm would come from the child finding out before they're old enough to understand, so as long as you avoid that, I don't see what would be wrong with it.
>you're trying to give a child a better life than they would have had otherwise
ok heres our disagreement. isn't it most likely counterfactually that the kid would end up raised by someone who is stable enough to raise them & also doesnt think they shouldnt exist?
Hmm, maybe. If that's true then maybe there's something mildly wrong about adopting as an anti-natalist.
I think this is just a pun on "shouldn't exist". Antinatalists don't believe in going on a killing spree to put everyone who is currently alive out of their misery. They already have the position that everyone who currently exists should exist and have the best life possible, and what is bad is creating more people. What would be harmful for the child to believe is "it would be better if I didn't exist", what the parents believe is "it would have been a better choice to not create her", but these propositions are different.
Maybe the trick is to be clear that the bio parents did the child a disservice by bringing them into the world and then abandoning them, and brought them into a world with so many problems that they have to deal with now? i.e focusing on "it's wrong that they made you because of how it negatively affected you" rather than "it's wrong they made you because of how you negatively impact the world". Idk much about kids tho, both are probably still hard to hear
i think thats fine, but it still only works if the adoptive parents are not saying its generally wrong to bring kids into the world
For sure, although you could still focus on "it's wrong because of the impact on the future child". But, it depends when you tell the kid about views like that. I think it's appropriate to wait to talk about stuff like that until they're more mature and already have an understanding of the issues in the world. Also, you can focus on the facts underpinning your view rather than the view itself, and gradually explore concepts and info in more depth as they get older rather than effectively only telling them "you shouldn't be here" their whole life. It should be about fostering their understanding and critical thinking (edit: and empathy) rather than making sure they reach the "correct" conclusions
hell, there are adults that aren't mature enough to handle conversations on heavy topics with difficult implications, and I wouldn't talk to them about something like antinatalism either
I think it's very difficult to explain the "proper full on" (ie Benatarian) antinatalist stance that seems to me (definitely not an antinatalist) also fundamental rejection of life itself, or at the minimum pro-non-existence, existentially/mortally pessimistic, and really taken to its rational conclusion, pro-extinction, to a child in a way that maintains the distinction between "it'd better to never been born" and "it'd be better (for everyone) to be dead". I think it's very hard to grasp it on the *individual*, personal rather than abstract level even as a reasonably cognitively capable adult.
So my main concern here wouldn't be the child thinking THEY specifically are "bad" or "burden" but that EVERYONE is and that the optimal solution to life for everyone is to die asap: not necessarily something you want to reinforce eg in a teenager (unless you're pro extinction of course but we're not going to go there presumably).
If the antinatalist in question is more of a tragic realist (life is suffering, but not of negative value overall, we are here so we can do the best to alleviate or transcend this) then this seems like a perfectly reasonable position to discuss with a child once the child is capable of grasping rudimentary abstract thought (it's really pretty Buddhist adjacent after all).
Perhaps the "proper" (Benatarian) antinatalists would be better adopting elderly adults in need of permanent care. Or rescue animals.
It's not that complicated. "There shouldn't be as many people in the world as there are with current technology/resource levels, but I'm glad that you exist and that I get to take care of you while you grow up" is pretty straight forward.
Worth noting, though, that the kind of antinatalists you're talking about aren't uhhh, actually that deeply concerned with suffering. "I am sorry that (presumably mortal) existence was inflicted upon you non-consensually" isn't really child-appropriate, but it's also not something that in my observations most of the kind of people you're talking about seem to consider very much at all.
this is assuming that the kid ij this situation would not be cared gor wo them, instead of assuming they wouldnt be in a situation where "you are a burden on the world" is not a possible interpretation available
"cared gor wo them"? did you mean "cared for by"?
To my understand, most of the adoptee pool in the US these days comes from kids whose parents are extremely neglectful if not abusive primarily because of addiction issues, which does get into messed up racial dynamics on all levels very quickly, but to my understand the system has mostly moved away from the worst excesses of the past, maybe even to the point of over-correcting.
There are obviously still places where there are perverse incentives for social workers to do removals, and that absolutely must stop, and non-citizen kids is a whole other terrible ball of wax, but as far as I understand, "the system wants kids as social cannon fodder and so your baby gets snatched unjustly" mostly isn't a thing anymore.
“It’s wrong to have kids but I will adopt” seems confused or dishonest or something. Maybe the child can notice this and correct them.
Basically, why would you do something wrong on purpose? I can maybe relate but it’s odd.
Wait, what is the thing you think they're doing that they believe is wrong? An anti-natalist believes it's wrong to *have* children, i.e. bring new children into the world. They don't believe it's wrong to raise children who already exist.
Good point.
https://unstableontology.com/2021/04/12/on-commitments-to-anti-normativity/ Is related discussion.
Seems like there’s something about shared versus adversarial notions of morality.