EndlessNightmare

/r/worldnews : yabbut it's not genocide because reasons

So we're back to: you can't get consent for creating a new life. Since consent can't be obtained, you have to justify the position of doing something that affects someone without their consent.

There is precedence for this. I think a better analogy, that avoids the paradoxical issues of non-existence, would be life-saving treatment for someone who is unconscious. The treatment can either be administered (without consent, due to the patient being unconscious) to save their life. Or the treatment can be withheld and the patient dies. Justifying this treatment is predicated on the treatment being to the benefit of the recipient and is generally accepted with some various exceptions.

Many people would be of the opinion that creating a new person is beneficial to said new person. However this is where the fundamental disagreement between antinatalists and pronatalists would be. Is creating a new person beneficial or detrimental to the person being created? The hard antinatalism position says that it is "always bad", but of course the answer to this question can be conditional as well and need not be an absolute "always good" or "always bad". And people have different thresholds for where this point is. That's it, that's the difference of opinion.

I’ve never encountered the problem of being told I should have children

Childfree people encounter this all the time.

nor intimidation, coercion, or violence.

It can happen in abusive relationships, but it would be rare in more general situations.

Someone passed out at a party will wake up sooner or later. Their lack of ability to consent is temporary.

Someone who hasn't been conceived yet will be born sooner or later (following successful conception and gestation). Their lack of ability to consent is temporary.

It’s my same answer to “what if your parents decided to abort you?” Asked by pro-lifers.

I get a chuckle out of this. It isn't the threat that they think it is.

The antinatalist might argue that, though historically this may have been the case

Historically, approximately half of children died before the age of 5.

But I also don't think it's fair to compare modern reproduction with historical, because the contexts are very different. For starters, it is more of a conscious choice now due to modern contraceptives.

Secondly, modern society (at least in developed nations) tend to place a significant value on human life. Look at how things like medicine and safety have improved over the past 100 years, and of course the huge drop in child mortality rates. There is much more consideration given to individual well-being. There is of course another angle to look at: maximizing joy vs minimizing suffering. Positive utilitarianism vs negative utilitarianism. Antinatalism clearly focuses on the latter.

It's more like the real problem here is extremism. Taking any belief to an absolutist and extreme degree is a problem. This also includes values and positions that are considered mainstream.

I get why people might choose not to have children, but to assert that others shouldn’t is a whole other thing.

Plenty of people seem to have no problem asserting that others should have children.

But really, the problem isn't about asserting what one should/shouldn't do. At that stage, it is still just one's opinion. It becomes a problem when someone resorts to using intimidation, coercion, or outright violence to try and impose one's will.

I think 4 people were injured, as I saw from other articles on this. It isn't clear if these injuries were to people inside the building or elsewhere.

They are not the same thing

Working many of the hours to afford a car. So that you can get to/from work.

There are bad actors in every group, but the vast majority of these people do not engage in acts of violence.

Painting them with this brush would be like pointing at parents who abuse their children and then saying that all parents abuse their children. It's obvious bullshit.