Talking to a Student About Procreative Ethics (Is it Wrong to Create New People?) 

I love this. My comment is gonna be completely unrelated to the discussion though: Somebody get that man a tote bag or something!

until 6:30 i thought he was holding a newborn baby.

First 🌱 Post-watching edit: I was honestly caught completely off-guard by "Shouldn't we aspire to fairness whenever we can?" -"No" 😂

Amazing!!! Great outreach!!! I love it when people say.” Why haven’t you had kids yet?? That’s selfish!!” And I’ve always carried the thought: What could be MORE selfish than having YOU twice?..

Zeke was absolutely correct in Attack on Titan.

Excellent video with excellent points you've made! Also really glad your interlocutor was reflective and actually understood what you were saying without twisting anything... can't wait to see more such conversations! He surprised me a bit with his view on "fairness" though, that was strange... which is why I'm glad these conversations are being had because it shows people's truest thoughts and beliefs that they may not even realize they hold until they are asked.

I'm an antinatalist too and was once debating with this guy about this topic, he couldnt find an good argument and got frustrated and started saying that he didnt care about the potential suffering and he didn't care if he was selfish or not, it was not going to stop him from having a baby lol

I like the open communication here. It’s important to listen to others even when we disagree.

Heck yeah great stuff good to see ya spreading the message and speaking your truth

What a great, friendly conversation about antinatalism! Cool! Thank you very much!

Attack on Titan has touched upon Anti-natalism, Euthanasia and the never ending cycle of hatred, suffering and death.

really cool video. i think this channel will blow up if you keep up this work. nice job and interesting discussion for sure. i feel like I'm in the middle. It really depends on which angle you look at it from. One day ill write you an email and maybe set up a larger conversation because I didn't even know this (Antinatalism) existed. probably hit my feed because im vegan and i like to watch those vegan debates

For those who haven't been around on this planet as long as I have they may not be aware that many of the arguments for veganism - vegetarianism actually come from a book called ' Diet for a Small Planet ' by Frances Moore Lappe . I still hear vegans/ veggies quoting facts that come from that book ( over 50 years old now ) . Now the thing about that book was that it was a riposte against Paul Erlich's book ' The Population Time bomb ' . Paul's book was a warning against the terrible effects that increasing human populations would have on the environment and humans as well . Diet for a Small Planet basically said ' No ,was long as everyone is a vegan - vegetarian we can feed huge human populations ' . It is ironic that it was a book that was anti meat - dairy that gave a ' green ' light to population growth . The really tragic thing about that book is it doesn't mention the impact of population growth on the biosphere and other sentient beings in particular . Look at the eco debate in the west . It's mainly a panic about global warming , or rising sea levels , and the effect it will have on human lifestyles. Virtually nothing abouts it's impact on wildlife . This is not just about sentiment ( although that is a powerful argument) , as only the truly rigid thinking cannot be aware in our reliance on abundant biodiversity. . Anyway - Peace and love y'all ✌️🌞.

Antinatalism 4 da Win! 🏆

I really liked the conversation and would like to share my thoughts on some of these points. I hope i dont spam. It would be honored if people could sahre their own view on this. Please excuse my english im not a native speaker. 1. Cant you share your experience/ Love with other people than your kid? A: Yes, but i dont see why this would go against having a kid. I think no one just starts to keep their exp and love for them at some point because they already shared it with enough people. Besides, sharing with your kid is something different than with a person you come to know in life. Your actions influence your child greatly, as it has no own experience of things at the start. So sharing love and exp with them is for them extremly special and for someone that brings that love to a child, which knows nothing of this world, it is as well a very special thing. 2. Bearing a child only so that one can share his love and EXp with them is selfish. A: Well essentially yes, but that goes for all the things we humans do. Selfishness is a driving factor of biological survival. It is found to a certian degree in every living thing. I do believe, that humans only do things, that are selfish, even if they seem altruistic. Even if you get nothing in return for your good deeds, there is still that felling, of having done something good, that drive us to continue doing these good things. If that feeling would vanish, or worse, we would feel bad being altruistic, then would anybody even consider doing good things to one another? Ask yourself that the next time you are doing something good:,,Isnt it that feeling which i chase, instead of the good deed itself?". I do believe that there is a spectrum of how selfish something is. Things get, in my opinion, more selfless, the less we are to get from doing "Selfless" things, But we cannot get rid of the selfishness 3.The Child could experience great hardships in life A: Why would this necessarily be bad? Sufffering is an integral part of life, like fear, remorse and guilt. Even though it is unnerving to feel these things, they make us essentially alive. If we had no hardships to overcome. what would our works be worth? Why do anything, if things are just as easy as they are? A life without challenges? Seems not good. But there are obviously also extreme forms of Suffering which we see, like terminal illnesses. But most of these people will still call upon the things in their life as good and also pleasant. For many, this suffering almost crumbles in the face of the love and friendship they could experience. Even if it may be less than that of others. Are the lives of these people "less worth" than those of people, who always had it good? Can we make the decision, that a life of hardship is not worth living for the person to be born? I find that selfish and also quite transgressive from our side. We do not have the right to decide which life is worth living and which not. 4. not Creating new people is preventive. A: well the guy in the video made a point in my eyes when he said, that this yould be also said for the opposite: "what if the child brings great joy to the world?" The parents themselves have obviously the ability to influence their children to become good people, so i agree that we should teach good parenting. But even if we go with the assumption, that a new Person causes great suffering in the world. Suffering does not stand alone in the world, as i think. People often times learn to prevent their own suffering. So could a suffering-bringing child even be evenutally good for mankind? Its quite a hard topic but i think this has to be taken into account. 5. Its unfair to make children for the goals of society A: Well i would argue, that Antinatalism also follows a societal goal in trying to minimize suffering by preventing the creation of new humans. The preference of our society is to minimize suffering. And Antinatalism offers this prevention of suffering. So we put our own goals as a society above the question of existence for a new human. If we should not decide whether a human shall be born, can we really decide that a human shall not be born? By that logic we shouldnt have the right to question this at all. 6. A Person which doesnt exist, has no interest in existing A: I think this way of thinking is rather strange. A "nonexisting Person" is defined through its absence. The statement of "doesnt have a interest" makes no sense to me. As the video creator herself said it in the video: Existing Persons have a interest in existing, so they should exist. But then we have to mention, that at every point of its existence, a Person has interest in existing. So for me this is a Argument for making babies. All People, if they are not affected by an ilness, have an interest in living, so we actually do bad in denying them this interest by not making them. 7. We should use the ressources we have, which we are currently using for children, for the things we actually care about. A: this again i find very strange. If the argument is, that it is selfish to make children, then how is it not selfish to stop using ressources for children and instead using them for us. For me this sounds like: we/i want ressources so We/I can live better. This is selfishness. And what are these things that we care about? They will cease to exist when we die with them. There will be no good to left behind for the next ones if we just use it for ourselfesand deny the creation of the next generation So that we can have this good life, before everything that, we are, we feel, we experience ceases to exist with no one left to experience these things again. This leaves a very bad taste in my mouth Thanks for reading. Hope its not too long😅

2:21 "it doesn't feel as special" actually , taking care of "someone else's" child should be more special than creating your own mini-me cuz majority of people do that already ... so ... why not do something "out of the box"? why not "step out of your comfort zone" and actually adopt instead of doing what everyone else does ?

10:30 it's nice to see that he has food today ... but what if tomorrow there is nothing to eat? will he still believe the idea that life is a gift?

Keep it up!

I wonder if you'd get even more interesting discussion if the sign read, "There's no sufficiently good reason to have kids". That's because I think there can be good reasons to have kids...... but are they justified, or sufficiently good reasons. 🤔

Antinatalism is a position opposing imposition....... which by it's nature is something done to another without consent.

Amazing to see! Away at the moment but really looking forward to watching this video!

That dude had so much food 😭

Very interesting! I have a question, maybe stupid one haha. If the planet somehow had some form of agency that decides on who can have children, and this agency would only pick people that have good morals, according to yourself. Would you like that or is that also bad?

He is a man of plenty😂

11:19 good point

Morality is a human and only human thing. It makes no sense to say ''create life is immoral'', because morality is an instinct just like reproduction. You can't judge an instinct which just exists to the benefits of our own species basing of other with the same objective. A lion doesn't dispose of morality, because in the absence of reason it has it's mighty teeths and claws in it's place, and his instincts demand that he eats flesh without remorse. We haven't that, so we came up with reasoning, and reasoning calls for the instict of morality, so that we function in a orderly group. Without morality, we wouldn't have the capacity of organizing the roles of each individual in a tribe, which would make our competitive capacities in the wild puny, and obviously without reproduction we won't even exist. Life, following your arguments, is a selfish and immoral thing, because life doesn't ask if you want or not to exist. But that is impossible to claim, since life is not a living rational being. We didn't choose to have reproductive habilities, neither we choose to use morality to the benifit of our kind and detriment of other species, but life gave us this, and we did what we did with it. That's all, neither bad nor good, just life.n

Prevention of wild animal suffering is the easiest "good" reason against this position. On a side note, you're really good at street conversations!

Not first 😿 😿 😿

Good lord, put the groceries down.

I have a question Tofudog, kind of unrelated to the main point, but when you said that d3th is a harm and people that do exist have an interest in continuing to exist ... as an extension of that idea, would you be in favor of the people that DO already exist achieving immortality?

Nice discussion. By in large, people are reflexively fixated on the non-action result of antinatalism realized (i.e. not procreating) that they forget about the etiology of the subject matter. Antinatalism is simply describing how the function of this reality is not ethical (i.e. creates suffering, clearly). Saying 'that's just biology' and or mentioning a moral stance for bolstering humanity in the future is only proving this point, not negating it. In this comment section I've read people saying antinatalism won't work/is futile/infers killing of existing people, or that antinatalists ought to do outreach in areas high in fertility rates. Essentially a lot of projection. There is no monolith goal per se. Antinatalism at its' core before anything is describing the criminality of this reality at bottom. The description is being shadowed over by the projected prescription of people's perception of what people ought to do. What we do with this information is up to each individual. But, it is not hard to understand that this is all fucked up. That is at bottom what antinatalism is stating.

Having kids - and lots of them - is essential to ensure that people who are alive are looked after and do not duffer. When there is such a high demand for elder care and no young people tp pay for the services, they end. No more children is the fastest route to the largest increase in suffering for the whole of society, before it literally dies. Are y'all anti-natalists on a broad societal level (advocating for no one to have kids), or just on a personal level? Cause my objection forks based on that.

I am a bit of uncomfortable about the idea of evangelism in antinatalism . I appreciate the fact that the guy has been invited to chat rather than having been preached to about antinatalism. I tend to think that antinatalists are born ( ironically ) not made - although early experiences may reinforce anti natalists sentiment . I think that antinatalism should be more about putting the idea ' out there ' so that other antinatalists are aware that they are not alone . I first came across David Benatar fairly recently . I was amazed that his book was already ten years old by then . I read a lot and I had never heard of it . What touched me ( and David apparently) were the thousands of comments in support of his anti natalist stance . I shed a tear or two because basically I thought it was ' just me ' who had those thoughts . Without sounding sycophantic I am very impressed that tofudog seems to be very well versed in anti natalist argument ( eg 'the ' why don't you just kill yourself argument ' ) despite only just apparently finding Benatar herself . ✌️

Good video, good job!

While antinatalism may be philosophically sound, it has dangerous real life consequences from a more pragmatic stand point. Antinatalists have to be smart to understand why having a kid isn't a good thing for them. The problem is that the not-so-smart person will not understand antinatalism and have kids anyway. If every intelligent person becomes an antinatalist and every unintelligent person is already a natalist, well one should already see the consequences of this scenario. Also, this isn't just a scenario; it's already happening in real life. You don't even have to be a eugenicist to agree with my argument. If stupid people are the only ones having kids, then they will nurture their stupidity onto their children, assuming they are the ones raising them. Early adopters of antinatalism will be punished for their lack of children by the stupid ones' children taking their spots on school and housing. Antinatalism only works if everyone follows it, which is simply not realistic.

Bro was straight up munching

This feels like a early 2000s teen comedy vibes i love it. I Love the channel too

8:35 "There's just nothingness" ? If you Imagine a universe where only you exist, then you die, but then, somehow another you pops into existence - can we say that before this new you came to exist that consciousness didn't exist? That there was "nothingness"? No. Before the new you came to exist, the first you existed. The new you had absolutely no idea the first you existed, but we, the readers of this thought experiment know that there was no lack of experience before the new consciousness came to exist. From the perspective of consciousness itself, it appeared and blinked out, then reappeared. It was just being done by a different 🧠. And so if the second you dies and yet another you comes to exist, then there'd be yet another life imposed after the second you's death. But now let's switch out the first and 3rd you for a dog and a mouse. I say that just as there was consciousness before the 2nd you, there'd still be consciousness; it's just that some other brain was responsible for it. And the "mouse life" would be the one imposed after the 2nd you died. So there's no "nothingness", or achievement of "non-experience".

He has non-vegan groceries... grrr

Scorched Earthling Ed

Vegan of course have a video with some good points for antinatilism. Have you seen it ?

If you believe that the world is bad and that existing within it is bad, then yes, having children is only a bad thing. However, you and I both think that existing is better than not existing, given that neither of us have killed ourselves. For that reason, even without getting into any other one, people don't need to provide moral justification for why they need children. Not only that, but there's a fair amount of hypocrisy inherent to the desire for all human life to die out-- which is ultimately what you're proposing-- coming from someone who believes all animal life sacred to the point that you choose to be vegan. Should all animals then be neutered, to prevent them from selfishly propagating their own genes?

This guy DOES have issues, after watching a little longer. I feel he's going to be a serial killer some years from now.

have you explored efilism?

Spend energy on reducing suffering than eliminating all suffering. If we were to end the human race, who is not to say that life will evolve again for more suffering? I think it's better to continue advancing technology and civilization so that a future generation of people can suffer so much less and we can share such technology with other life. It's hopeful, but in a universe that is already desolate, that's all we got. Antinatalism to it's extreme is an unproductive sentiment. But, ideas of being more mindful of the impact of bringing life into this world is a fair one. That should be the biggest takeaway.

Vegans when they read 2 pages of some obs ure French philo...

80 IQ

9:57 LOL they bought eggs :/

This is wack bro Malthusian anti-human stance. She doesn’t even really listen to him or consider

Youre not the first to think this terrible idea is something to push on others. Certainly wont be the last cause what youre asking is unreasonable. Imagaine saying "thats selfish" and thinking thats a?solid argument. Yeah. Biology is selfish. So are you.

Have you thought about wild animal 'suffering'? It might not necessitate children right now, but it might mean that humans need to be born to carry out positive measures for other sentient life

Childlessness is just prolonged adolescence or anti-humanism.

You should spread your anti-natalist views to those in Africa :)

This is a very dangerous philosophy. The basic point of your argument is ‘life is bad so we should stop people from living’. I fail to see how this is any different from advocating for mass killing. I hope you find the happiness and goodness that exists in the world and come to understand why humanity has endured, if life was genuinely better off not lived we wouldn’t still be around.

anti-natalism is futile, it would never be able to overcome selective pressures, you are merely replacing yourself and thoughts like yours with people that desire procreation and have thoughts that align with that. Ridiculous.

Anti-natalism is defeated if you believe the info that the nde experiencers bring back, which is that we actually do choose to be born here, as our souls exist before birth. But if you assume consciousness ceases after death, antinatalism makes sense if you believe the suffering of life outweighs the happiness.

You believe in not having children to prevent the possibility of suffering. I believe in having children to give the opportunity for prosperity. The opportunity of potential good, out weigh the the possibility of potential bad.

If life is worth continuing, then isn't it worth beginning?

tofudog i love your content but can you debate people who are already somewhat prepared and heard of antinatalism before? maybe like philosphy debatebros particularly on the left/right who are pronatal "i love people(human life is beautiful/good ), antinatalism is cringe/waste of time because its not achievable" both sides say this, but on the right its just 1488 nazi shit added. so i think the left is more interesting

Why should it be a gamble tho? Isn't experiencing the bad side still better than the void of experience? It is not a matter of consent, life naturally desires to thrive, humans are no exceptions we are born with the natural instinct to survive, innate instinct to follow our mothers; Our parents give us the knowledge to face the hardships in life and still continue living willingly, we also grow stronger with our life experiences once we go trough them, society gives us a safe place where to live, sure fatalities happen but isn't still better to live for 10 days experiencing the deepest love for the human being that created you than to not be born at all? Even people with terminal illnesses or that are born in a harsh enviroment but most of them manage to survive and find happines. I think that it breaks down to the ability of your parents to teach you how to be happy despite all that life naturally puts you trough, this may not always be possible but it sure is in the town where I live in, i may not be rich or idk extremely privileged but I still think that this life is an opportunity to experience emotion, i think that emotion is the key the life that we experience as humans. My dad is a hermit whom I see once every too years, my mother failed to pursue her ideals in life and has an inner rage towards society that sometimes make hard to be around her, all things that they passed down on me, along with the ability to love the world. I see my mother smile everyday, my father calls me every now and then and always makes me feel loved. Even with some flaws they teached how to live, I'm grateful about that, I love my parents

The woman was polite and presented her questions in a seemingly logical manner, but the case made is extremely weak. How your kids turn out is absolutely NOT a “gamble”. A HUGE part of how they turn out is determined by how you raise them. Can’t you share your love and experiences with people who already exist just as much as your kid? NO, absolutely not. The experience and love you can share with your own child is not even remotely close to that which you can share with any other being in existence. We can promote goodness in society among the people who already exist. Yes, but the impact is lightyears away from that which you can have on your one‘s own children. Raising children well is BY FAR the number one thing one can do to have a positive influence on society. It’s an extreme hypothetical, and one which could never possibly come to pass, that all people would become anti-natalists, and the human race would thus die out. It will always be the case that the vast majority of people desire to have children. But if this were to happen, it would clearly be a bad thing. Not only the bad things, but the good things from human culture would also perish forever. It is beyond ridiculous to say that having children is selfish, since it among the most difficult endeavors one could take on in life. On the other hand, desiring to have a good life for the people who now exist and then having no more humans exist after this generation is among the most selfish desires one could possibly have. Holding your position also requires one to be extremely oblivious to anything that actually matters about existence, to any true value. There’s more to life than minimizing suffering. If that's all there were to it, then it would be best for NOTHING at all to exist. But no, life has meaning and a purpose. There is MUCH more that is wrong with this ridiculous way of thinking, but these were a few that stood out to me from the video.

I want kids one day

Please keep your antinatalism activism separate from your vegan/animal-liberation activism, e.g. on a separate channel, should you choose to continue antinatalism activism. That said, when he asked why don't you have a sign that says "kill yourself", you said that those of us already existing have an interest in continuing to exist. Would you rather have never been born? If your answer is yes, then I'm sorry for whatever happened to you to make you feel that way. If your answer is no, then how can you make the blanket statement that having a child is unethical?

"Spengler wrote about this" You're just sick, it will pass....

Nice chat. I think suffering broadens humans’ ability to appreciate joy and meaning. We can’t have one without the other, right? A balance of nature. Don’t many healthy humans want to enrich the world with more healthy humans to reduce suffering long term? Antinatalism sort of forces attention towards the awareness of suffering, which reinforces a more pessimistic worldview like a recursive argument.

one good reason for having kids is the ability to pass down what we have learned from all disciplines (ex AI tech, engineering, etc) and continue learning more about the world as a species.