well first, it isn’t exactly a binary continuum whether or not one has reproductive autonomy. many people are somewhere between the caricature of a literal sex slave and someone just stuck in an unhappy marriage

Not sure why you’re putting so much emphasis on this - there is a dichotomy in the sense that you can either make the choice or you can’t. If you’re not in the position to make the choice, it doesn’t matter if you’re a literal sex slave or stuck in an abusive relationship or w/e: you can’t make the choice.

second, im not really justifying have children nor did i do so originally. honestly, willful antinatalism is an incredibly obscure opinion in public discourse - most antinatalist trends are results of socioeconomic realities … but people are going to do it no matter what i think and there’s no public opinion campaign that will ever change that, at least as humanity currently stands.

Why does any of that matter in the context of choosing not to have a kid? It’s an obscure opinion? Really? I’ve never put much weight into the whole “everyone’s doing it!” style of peer pressure… having a kid for that is almost as fucked up as having one just to fight in some unwinnable battle on a dying planet. And yeah no shit people are going to keep doing it - even ignoring the ones who aren’t able to make the choice, there’s still an overwhelming tendency to approach that decision for selfish reasons like continuing some family legacy or having that ‘little bundle of joy’. There isn’t much thought into whether or not it’s fair for the kid.

i don’t really feel the need to even attempt justifying reproducing. like i said, i’d never really have kids myself.

You entered into this conversation doing exactly that, despite your own decision on the matter.

if you want to argue against the overwhelming consensus and body of evidence from academia demonstrating that who one’s parents are massively influence their outcomes in life then go ahead

I did not, nor will I. I said it wouldn’t make a difference in the fight against fascism. Nice strawman though.

but this is like saying we should be concerned about repainting our racing stripes when the engine block is literally about to fall out.

It’s saying the car is totaled. Tending to the engine or racing stripes are both a waste of time and effort.

who someone becomes in life is determined is by who they are born to and/or raised by, therefore is one of the biggest levers by which future demographic and political trends will be decided.

In a vacuum, yeah. But in the context of a society where stupid and evil breed like rabbits, casting a drop in opposition to that river isn’t going to do shit. The exception being if you happen to be rich - money is ultimately what drives politics, so if you’ve got the income to make an impact and the means to crank out a child and put the effort into molding them into a decent person, then yeah I guess it’s worth a shot. Even if they can’t change anything, they’ll have the means to live a life detached from the dumpster fire. That said, the venn diagram of people who are rich and people who are decent hasn’t shown much overlap.

we live in nigh apocalyptic times, but this weird overvaluing of the sanctity of human life that antinatalist do feels similar to the pearl clutching republicans have over abortion and fetuses.

More strawman. I didn’t say shit about the value or sanctity of human life. I hate it when people put words in my mouth - stop doing that. My stance here is ultimately about suffering, and that if you’re in a position to choose whether or not create a life that’s doomed to suffer the hellscape we’ve built for the generations after us, that the sensible decision is to simply decline.

a sacrificial lamb? dude get over yourself. we’re all gonna die. kids die everyday. that doesn’t mean you have to retreat into cynic pessimism…

Jfc you tell me to get over myself for adhering to an opinion built entirely on minimizing the suffering of others, then immediately shrug off people (and kids specifically) dying everyday. Again, life vs death isn’t the core of the argument here, but consider the mass suffering that goes along with those and follow your own advice: get over yourself. This isn’t cynic pessimism, it’s pattern recognition.

who are you, or any of us, to be the anubis weighing the value of souls that might come into this world?

I don’t give a fuck about souls or anubis or any other mythology. Those things are fun in videogames or w/e, but don’t belong in conversations like this one. I care about suffering, climate collapse, this global surge in popularity of authoritarianism: those things are real, and increasing at rate that doesn’t exactly make our world a suitable place to raise a child.

But who am I, you, or anyone else reading this to make the decision to have a kid? A potential parent, of course.

your position is just so blindingly anthropocentric and arrogant.

How so? You are the one arguing in favor sending our spawn into a life of misery so they can solve humanity’s problems, for the sole sake of humanity itself, without regard to what that means for the individual kid. That seems pretty anthropocentric and arrogant to me. You’re projecting.

isn’t a choice for some people

Previous poster isn’t talking about those people; but about people who do have a choice and why they should decline.

this just increases the ratio of parents in the next generation that are shitty people

Correct. But that doesn’t justify dropping a child into the dumpsterfire we’re turning our planet into just so they can serve as a footsoldier in the fight against it. Children aren’t sacrificial lambs.

effectively strengthening fascist movements by increasing the proportionment of lil hitlers vs everyone else in the kindergarten class.

What’s to say good parenting can combat that to enough of an extent to actually make a difference? It’s not rare for two genuinely good people to produce a little hellspawn that grows up to be a lil hitler despite their parent’s best efforts. Good parenting is certainly an important factor, but that’s far from a guarantee your kid will do good with their lives. They could just as well be the next actual Hitler.

We can’t outbreed stupid or evil. If abstaining from having a kid for the sake of protecting that kid from an increasingly dire hellscape is some kind of failure to delay humanity’s downfall, then humanity isn’t something that should be preserved.

I saw a mudcrab today.