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Ant wrote

Insofar as it does do those racist, ableist and tone-deaf colonial things it's a dogshit idea

most antinatalism is based in utilitarianism, which is also a dogshit idea

Benatar's negative utilitarianism is the kind of shit you use to justify eugenics in the poorest most war-torn parts of the colonised world
you could write a book about how dodgy his ways of thinking are

so utilitarianism especially so, along with all normative ethics

that all said, it's pretty hard to justify having kids in this collapsing disaster of a socioeconomic system regardless of how you do your ethics

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DaisyDisaster OP wrote

I'll have to read up more on utilitarianism. I didn't come to antinatalism through any thorough study of philosophy. It was more through a question I asked myself while in a depressive episode of whether I would have chosen to be born or not if I had had the opportunity to have a choice, and coming to the conclusion that the risk of having depression in the first place was kind of forced on me by my parents giving birth to me, which might be some internalized ableism on my part. I only found out this position even had a name months later, when I found the subreddit. It's more an issue of the impossibility of consent for me than strictly reducing suffering.

Thank you for your thoughts!

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sand wrote

dang, me too. didn't think about that internalized ableism aspect. thanks

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