It's just occurred to me that the message of the first few minutes of this video could easily be read as: "Yes, vasectomy does make you less of a man, and that's part of why I'm so pleased with it." To be clear, the procedure doesn't make any observable difference to anything; it simply prevents you from impregnating anybody. So for anybody who cares about masculinity, there's not much to worry about.
I had to get a Psychology evaluation before I got snipped. I still don’t understand what happened if I failed the evaluation. What would the doctors say: “sir, you are to crazy to not have kids.”
Man, this was way too much relatable, unbelievable. From the thing about learning about that stuff for the first time. I was repulsed by the idea of ever doing it, and was scared to think about it, while others my age thought it's funny. Mind you, I was already some kind of atheist at that age (10), so it wasn't possible to be religion indoctrination or something. Later I changed my mind, and thought about it as a funny act of pleasure. After some time again (recently) changed it again, so it's not only the physical act, but also the experience of bonding with someone. I have yet to feel such real affection towards another, but I wouldn't mind it casually, or would I? Not sure, maybe I am too lazy, whatever.. The thing about gender identity and sterilization making you "less of a man" just shows once again that the idea of gender has no coherent meaning, I mean it is a social construct which changes constantly, superficial form of identification, whatever. I too don't believe in gender, but exactly as you, I knew what you were going to say, am very lazy, and don't care enough to spend my time presenting as something else, what is something when there isn't anything? That would to me mean, that I am doing it out of some spite, so I do kind of reinforce the idea of gender? Nah, don't care. If I were to change my looks it wouldn't be to distance myself from "being a man", only for it's sake. I haven't really thought of myself as "a man" so it doesn't matter. Drastically changing your presentation would be inconvenient, so it's more practical to keep it as it is for now. I never understood why people wanted to have kids, I wasn't ever able to imagine myself doing it, something completely alien to me. Kids are horrifying little creatures and they ruin everything. I was always more uncomfortable around those younger than me. There is some incomprehensible void between us, I'd rather not have to be around them. At some time I came to a new conclusion, that they are actually very stupid, wow nobody ever knew that, therefore it's stupid to get frustrated over it, so just ignore them completely. We'll keep it at that, I've been guilty of not watching your videos enough, my forgetfulness, that's going to change! This video felt very real. Take care
Well of course, Commander SouthPark333Gaming -- you reproduce through cloning. Sex would just be a distraction from your pursuit of victory over the Rutans.
I suppose that antinatalism would be more accesible to people were some antinatalists, especially online, not so hostile to people with children to the point of calling them 'breeders' or such.
I'm sure someone has mentioned this but vasectomies do have a very very small failure rate, but it does exist. There are case studies of people whose tubes recanalize a while after the procedure.
Yep. Unfortunately, no method of birth control is perfect. Vasectomy is one of the most reliable, however. It's far more reliable than condoms or the pill.
A little bit of topic but since this video intersects with the ant-Natalism and pessimism stuff. I have thought a little bit about this scenario in which one gets one day of pleasure and one day with twice the amount of pain. And I don’t think this is such a bad deal. After all, both days are once in a lifetime experiences, and even bad experiences I think can still be interesting experiences. Every week I learn a new skill, Idea or fact about the world. And especially right now, I am at a point in my life in which there was never so much change and I find it far more satisfying then the time in which every day was the same, despite the fact that it was more easier and comfortable in the past. So maybe one’s evaluation of life can not be reduced to mere suffering and pleasure but instead new experiences may have their own positive weight like pleasure.
My vasectomy came very late, after forty years old, and it turns out I only had sex a few times in the subsequent fourteen years. I had many reasons, from not wanting children that would suffer mental conditions I suffer with, to wanting to end the line of my dispicable father and grandfather. Something that I did not expect that I have since recovered from was a deep sense of disconnection from all of humanity, like I had broken a chain that led all the way back to the beginning of life itself. It really was an existential crisis, and it took me several years to work through it. I have never seen this mentioned as a potential side effect of this process, so if you are considering getting this surgery it's something you may want to keep in mind.
I have the same feeling of "breaking the chain" but I derive a great deal of joy from it. I love the idea that an unbroken sequence of billions of years of reproduction ends with me. I'm sorry to hear that this was distressing for you. Certainly, a vasectomy is not a decision to take lightly!
Exactly, but everything I see about it does take it lightly. Only the benefits get mentioned. I didn't choose to be born- I didn't want to force that decision future generations, maybe countless in number.
@@ericvulgate7091 I have to say, this wasn't my experience. When I sought out my vasectomy, I was told several times about the potential risks, including negative psychological consequences, both in person and in the leaflets I was given. It was never presented to me as a minor decision.
Interesting, I've occasionally considered getting a vasectomy for similar reasons as you but I've never gotten around to it. What was the process of getting the operation like? Was the wait time long? Also, I've noticed you get a lot of comments about anti-natalism, especially in videos similar to this one and your AMA's. Have you ever considered making a seperate video about the topic, if not for an interest in the topic itself, but to stop getting asked about it. I think I would go mad if I was you.
The wait time as in how long I had to wait after asking for the vasectomy? It was a couple of months. The operation itself was a breeze since I had it under general anaesthesia. I got pretty lucky in that for me, there was pretty much no pain afterwards. As far as I recall, I only took paracetamol for a couple of days. The anti-natalism comments don't bother me. I'm well aware that expressing pessimistic sentiments, and being vocal about refraining from reproduction, is bound to attract those sorts of comments. I'm fine with it. Like I said, I'm sympathetic to anti-natalism anyway.
With a couple of exceptions, the comments on this one have been good so far. But yes, unfortunately there is a certain crowd of people who get mad about those of us who have chosen to be child free, especially when we do it visibly.
@@KaneB Thank you at any rate for making these videos talking about your choices and reasons for them. They are interesting, well articulated, and seem correct. I have never had sex and don't expect to, but I am very sympathetic to your views on the matter (anti-natalist adjacent). I particularly enjoyed also your discussion of being 'forced to work' towards the end. This resonated with a lot of things I have thought and tried to talk about with people.
@@KaneB I actually respect your position though because you have expressed pro-natal sentiments elsewhere in that you've said you want society to have children so to propagate it. A lot of CF people neglect that mention that.
@@JohnSmith-yt8di Yesh, it was a contractarian objection to anti-natalism. The idea was basically that, if everybody were to follow the rule not to reproduce, this would likely make my own life worse off as it would cause serious social instability.
@@KaneB And that's how I feel too. I also just can't get behind the asymmetry argument although I am a pessimist. There's a good rebuttal to it on a blog I read.
As someone who would like to raise a child in the future, I love the ability to be pluralistic and just want to be wholesome for a moment. People are pretty cool at times, and want for children doesn't define a person. We provide support here ❤
Celibacy as I found out in my early 20's after becoming a member of a new religious movement (NRM) that lasted five years where at its core principle was celibacy did to an extent correlate to emotional/social extremes. This is because arguably it plays with social and personal/internal contradictions. The group ideology was substance dualism and hinged on purity of the soul which the leaders advocated should be focused on and ordinary members ought not be drawn into "body consciousness" . Members claimed a blissful life but over time-for a few years- but a caveat emerged as most members found celibacy impossible apart from a tiny elite cohort who live the institutional high life as traditional religious elites do. This suggests that as a long term strategy it may be in the best interest for an individual to be celibate or modernisation's version through sterilisation so as to maximise personal advantage within a social system that requires implicitly a body politic to reproduce labour that only benefits (consider billionaires) a fraction of the body politic who gain tangible political power and social benefits through resource inequality. The point is that observing a NRM is like a simulation of what might be a process like an industrial society that spans for many generations where members are caste into roles from birth that may not align with their primordial instincts.
Right, I don't see how it benefits me to create another cog in the machine of labour extraction. The fact that a bunch of techbro businessmen like Elon Musk have recently been seething about population decline and the childfree movement only confirms to me that I made the right decision.
I got to say you basically mirror my views on pessimism and anti-natalism, and you've done a great job expounding your thoughts on them. I too can't get behind a strong AN that says life is unremittingly bad for almost everyone, but neither can I delude myself into thinking it's a net positive for most. I however will probably have children, and respect your decision to get a vasectomy.
I doubt that arguments like this really play much role in whether a person decides to have kids. It's a happy coincidence that my personal desires to refrain from reproducing happen to align with my more generally pessimistic worldview. I was childfree long before I was a pessimist.
Hi, I just wondered about the following argument and would love to know your response to it: You do seem like someone who values how good humanity is on average and would like humanity to get better over time. Even if not, I'm guessing you would certainly value humanity not becoming worse over time. I'm also assuming that you think your values are certainly better than those of most human beings living currently. Now, by making the choice of not having kids, you have ensured that future humanity will have more "worse" humans (compared to you), which is something you don't want. So you should still have children. This argument also assumes that a child is more value-aligned with their parents than the rest of humanity. This certainly doesn't always hold, but I do think that it is a reasonable assumption on average. Btw I'm happy that you are proud of the decision you made! Thanks for making the videos.
That's a very strange argument. If one wants future people to be aligned with one's values, having a child doesn't seem to be an effective form of doing that. First, one could become a propagandist and devote one's life to convince others of one's values. This is a bit odd, and I'd think having honest discussions about values (where you could be corrected by others) is better. But if the goal is to maximize the number of people with the "right" values, having a child is one way of increasing the people with good values by *one*, with a lot more effort put into this one person. Doesn't seem like great return on investment. The more serious problem is that one shouldn't see one's kids as means to this kind of end. It seems quite cruel and unfair to have a children to "outnumber" the bad people. If the child grows to disagree with one, should one resent the child for failing at its purpose? The whole argument seems pretty silly and cruel.
It's not worth it. It's vanishingly unlikely that my child would make any discernable difference even if they did share my values. Compare voting. In a general election, my vote is very unlikely to make any difference. But that's not a big deal because all I have to do to cast a vote is walk two minutes down my road to the town hall. Now imagine a world in which casting a vote requires paying a substantial portion of my income to buy a voting machine, and waking up several times a night to provide fuel to the voting machine, and getting up every morning to drive the voting machine to its programmers, etc etc. Moreover, suppose that there is a good chance that when I cast my vote, the voting machine will spontaneously switch it to something else. In that world, I wouldn't give voting even a moment's consideration. The benefits come nowhere close to outweighing the cost.
Wait how old are you? I genuinely though you were in your 20s. And I agree with thoughts on kids. They are kind of just dumb and hard to talk to because of that. They don't understand and easily forget and don't pay attention etc. There's enough people in the world already anyways. I'm only 18 but I have been thinking about getting a vasectomy at some point. I do think I'm maybe a bit too young to make that big of a decision quite right now but it's definitely in the horizon. Great thoughts bro
This was in interesting video! I'm a relatively new subscriber and it was refreshing to hear you own personal perspective on a topic that you holds significant meaning to you. Having said that, I would like to contribute my own perspective on the matter. I'm roughly the same age as you (turning 31 this year) and during my teenage years my attitude mirrored yours in many aspects. I had no interest in reproduction, finding the concept rather off-putting. Whilst I had sex and enjoyed it, it never was a driving force for my life. Going into adulthood I considered vasectomy but ultimately dismissed it, reasoning that I could "change my mind later". It has to be said that even though I didn't really have a sex drive, I enjoyed pleasing my partners. To mitigate the risk of conception we employed elaborate safe-sex practices to reduce the possibility of it happening by a significant percentage. What is interesting is that a few years later, around the age of 27-28, I had a series of profound religious/spiritual experiences coupled with a general shift in my personal outlook. I developed a parental instinct, nurtured more by experience than inherent nature. I'm now very grateful that I never got to sterilization. The question I'm getting to is this: when doing the mental calculation and weighting the possibility of "changing your mind" against the possibility of conception when practicing safe sex when should one draw the line? It appears in your case you were positive that you'll never change your mind on such a topic. However, what advice would you give to a hypothetical person that is pondering the question? Sorry for this tirade of a comment, many admiration and never stop making amazing content!
I make an effort not to give advice to people. So I probably wouldn't say anything to that hypothetical person. But there are a couple of things worth bearing in mind: First, there are various methods by which infertile people can still have children, for instance, you could adopt, or your partner could do it via a sperm donor. In fact, even though vasectomy should be treated as permanent, it is sometimes possible for vasectomies to be reversed. So if you did change your mind after the vasectomy, there are still be options for having children. None of these options are as easy as ordinary biological reproduction. But they are there. Second, suppose that you change your mind, and you're unable to have children. How bad exactly would this be? There are people who desire children who are unable to have them for one reason or another. That's sad for them, but must it ruin their lives? People don't always get what they want, and most of the time, we're able to live with that. So you might want to compare the scenarios: (1) You never want children, and you never have children (2) You never want children, and you accidentally have children (3) You change your mind and do want children, and you never have children (4) You change your mind and do want children, and you do have children Sterilization rules out (2) and (4). The risk if you don't get sterilized is scenario (2); the risk if you do get sterilized is scenario (3). It's one thing to develop a parental instinct; it's another thing for that parental instinct to be so powerful that scenario (3) would ruin your life.
yeah some of the pleasure/pain arguments for AN are overly utilitarian focused but a lot of the deontological views for AN are interesting like the right to impose life/risk/gamble with someone else. like imagine you could bring a human slave into the world , but guarantee the slave is happy well its a deontic principle to be against slavery, so thats a procreation to be aganist. nothing to do with pleasure/pain there. a lot of antinatalist philosophers besides benatar , Julio cabrera more deontoic focused you might want to check out Benatars asymmetry ultimatly just says its a fact that if youre not born you cant "miss out" so that 100 years of constant pleasure you talked about, well if he never existed its not like hes missing out from it either. I could probably argue that its impossible to create life that is "100 years of pure pleasure" or even highly pleasure, life is necessarily full of entropy. you living means other creatures suffer, humans, animals. every good day we have causes someone else somewhere a bad day. There are research and studies done on this but i cant remember off top of my head i can find them and post later if anyone cares
You presented the slave case as a hypothetical, but I think this is pretty much what's happening when people decide to reproduce. Unless you're very wealthy, it's almost guaranteed that your children will be forced to work in order to survive. Is this kind of “coercion” by material circumstances as bad as coercion by an agent? No, probably not, at least not given how this has actually been practiced in our history. But I don't see these as much different in kind, and I think it's appalling that anybody is in either condition. It doesn't help, in my view, to point out that the few people who are freed from this condition tend to have other problems. People born into super-rich families, who therefore never need to work and never face any genuine adversity: granted, they often seem narcissistic, psychopathic, unable to form meaningful relationships, etc. But all this shows is that we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. It's a tragic fact about human psychology that if we did somehow free everybody from quasi-slavery, we would end up with a bunch of other issues. There is no challenge to pessimism here!
Still, it's a hypothetical: If you COULD create a being that experiences 100,000 years of bliss in exchange for one moment of mild discomfort, it does seem at least odd to argue there's an asymmetry in favor of never bringing that being into existence. I would agree that the better argument is whether it can actually be right to create something without consent (and thus whether it can ever be right to create anything at all), but even playing Benatar's game I'm skeptical of the calculus given the video's counterexample. It does not seem logically impossible to me that 100+ years of pleasure with minimal pain is hypothetically possible for some being (possibly a simulated being, but still, that seems logically possible), and if any being can have that, more work needs to be done to show its life was not preferable to never coming into existence.
In the arena of contemplating the decision to undergo a vasectomy, one cannot help but cast a shadow of skepticism and vehement disapproval upon such a course of action. The proposition to submit oneself to the surgical alteration of one's reproductive capabilities raises a veritable cacophony of concerns, both ethical and physiological, that warrant the most rigorous scrutiny. Foremost among these apprehensions is the palpable disquietude surrounding the irreversible nature of a vasectomy, a surgical procedure that severs the vas deferens, thus terminating the avenue for the transport of sperm. This unalterable transformation of one's reproductive anatomy is tantamount to an abdication of one's biological prerogative, a decision that vehemently rejects the primordial instinct for propagation inherent in the human species. Furthermore, the decision to embrace a vasectomy echoes with the dissonance of environmental folly, as it betrays a blatant disregard for the imperative of genetic perpetuation. By electing to embark upon such a path, one ineluctably joins the ranks of the childless, thereby contravening the imperative of kinship and familial lineage, which have long stood as the bedrock of societal cohesion. Additionally, the potential psychological repercussions that may accompany this decision ought not to be dismissed lightly. The profound emotional ramifications that can emerge from a vasectomy's irreversibility are a thunderstorm of existential despair, an emotional tempest that threatens to engulf the individual in a maelstrom of regret and longing. In summation, the decision to undergo a vasectomy, in the eyes of the discerning critic, stands as a monument to misguided volition, a surrender to the sirens of convenience that resonates with disapproval and sorrow. The irreversible nature of this choice, coupled with its ecological and existential implications, renders it a decision fraught with peril, deserving of the most strenuous censure and opposition.
I express my own attitude in this video: th-cam.com/video/ADiOPuujcdQ/w-d-xo.html I've discussed philosophical pessimism more generally here: th-cam.com/video/pK91YWOLz_s/w-d-xo.html
I think temperament wise my intuitions lean anti natalist like you, but I too wouldn’t call myself one either because my temperament is arbitrarily subjective.
It's hard to feel too bad for people being brought into existence when I know that the majority of them will not agree with my pessimistic assessment of life, and will say, if asked, that they are glad to have been born. (To be clear, this is not an objection to any particular anti-natalist argument. It's an explanation for why I don't feel strongly about anti-natalism.)
@@KaneB It's difficult for me to relate to or believe that assertion when I am not personally sure what it would even mean to feel one way or the other about having been born. It may be overly skeptical to suspect they don't know what they mean either, but it's all I've got to work with. I can conceptualize being someone else, but not being nobody at all; I wouldn't have any preferences if I didn't exist, so how can I make a comparison of my state to nonexistence? I never asked to be here, sure, and I'm not grateful to be here, but I really don't know what to think about its preferability to nothing at all. Plus, when is the cutoff for that assessment? Should I only believe it from people older than 80? If an 8-year-old declares he's glad to have been born, does that have any bearing on his opinion 70+ years later? How do I weight these claims? What will my final opinion on things matter in the instant before I die?
@@Uryvichk Hmm. I don't see much problem with understanding the claim, to be honest. In general, I don't need to actually experience something in order to compare it to things I have experienced. I've never been infected with plague, but I'm very confident that it would be miserable, and I'm glad that it's never happened. I suppose the difference is that with plague, I can imagine what it would be like to have plague, whereas I can't imagine what it would be like not to exist since there is nothing it is like not to exist. Even so, there doesn't seem to be any difficulty conceptualising features of the scenario where I never exist. For instance, had I never existed, I would never have experienced any pleasures or pains. That claim seems easily understandable and straightforwardly true.
You seem pretty young how do you know you won’t change your mind about this later on and regret it? It feels rash. Feelings, ideas, and opinions change with age
I was 31 when I had my vasectomy, and I had been stubbornly childfree for decades, since the age of 9 at least. Not once have I wavered on it. Not once have I felt even the slightest hint of a parental instinct. I'm not going to change my mind. Do I *know* that I'm not going to change my mind? Well, in general, I find arguments for skepticism compelling. I'm not sure whether I *know* that the sun will rise tomorrow or that the next sip of water will quench my thirst rather than poison me. I'd be less surprised by these things turning out false than by me changing my mind about children.
I for one like kids so i didn't relate to the sentiment, but i'm genuinely happy it worked for you! Totally on board with androgynous self-image though, and also really lazy to do anything about it other than grow my hair long which is free lol.
7:20 Haha, for me I learned about the process of "making a child" at 8~ years old from a science encyclopedia and my reaction was like "Wow, isn't it dirty?!" and that was the first time I epistemically ignored the science, after hearing about "sex" from my friends I have checked again the encyclopedia just to be sure. I think there is a thing to point out that if "the world is a bad place to exist" if they don't like the game they can simply quit, the only challenge is that living instinct but just looking at the number of people who "does find life not terrible enough to overcome their living instinct" shows that it is still a good deal for newborn to try out -especially in the developed countries-
I find myself having A very different view and outlook from your decision and I have to wonder why you think you won’t end up with kids ? You seem very convinced that because you can’t make kids that it’s not going to happen and you seem to thank yourself for saving yourself from making a mistake even though from my perspective all you have done is taken away the choice
The only way it could happen now is if I decide to adopt. I have a greater chance of being struck by lightning than that happening, so it's not something I worry about.
13:00 I think I would describe myself as antinatalist-adjacent, but it's not quite for the same reasons. In fact, I honestly find Benatar's asymmetry argument quite compelling, or at least, as compelling as any ethical argument can be for a moral antirealist. I would even go as far as to say that if antinatalism was defined as "Procreating is always immoral *in the context of* the person being created", I would begrudgingly call myself an antinatalist. But it's not. At least, in most antinatalist circles I've engaged with, and for most antinatalists I've talked to, antinatalism is the broader "Procreating is always immoral *per se* .". And that is my issue. For example, there's this hypothetical question. You are a ruler of a small, peaceful country, and an expansionist empire is creeping up to your borders. Soon it will invade and take over your people, and it's known to treat conquered nations awfully. You do, however, have an option to avert this: you can marry into the imperial family and produce an heir to secure peaceful relations. Should you do this? And I can't, for the life of me, see how "no" is the right answer.
One way to get to a “no” answer would be to appeal to a strict Kantian view about the impermissibility of treating people as means. (FWIW, I think it's fine to refrain from reproduction in the scenario. I also think it's fine to refrain from pulling the lever in trolley cases, no matter how many people you stack on one side of the tracks.) I take anti-natalism to include the view that reproduction is almost always wrong, or that it's wrong in the sorts of circumstances in which almost all humans live. As far as I know, even Benatar grants that reproduction can be permissible in some circumstances; I'm pretty sure he would agree with your judgement about the hypothetical scenario that you describe. His view is that reproduction is always a harm to the person coming into existence, but this harm might, in extreme cases, be outweighed by other factors. Similarly, a person can be pro-life even if they think that there are extreme cases where abortion is permissible, such as when the pregnancy threatens the mother’s life.
@@KaneB True, I guess I was being ambiguously hyperbolic with "I can't see how". A strict ethical interdiction on using people as means would get you there. My point was more on the lines of, *this* is what most antinatalists I've talked to argue is the bullet you have to swallow to be an antinatalist, and it's too big of a bullet for me to swallow. I am actually (pleasantly) surprised that Benatar wouldn't swallow that bullet either.
people with kids/people who want kids will blabber on and on and on about their (future) family. You probably just don't notice it since its the cultural norm.
on a slightly different topic, have you looked into philosophy regarding adoption? I'm somewhat suspicious that everyone seems to unanimously agree that responsible adoption is a morally virtuous act. I also believe that, but whenever 100% of people have the same moral position on an issue I can't help but feel like we're overlooking something. Have any philosophers tried to play devil's advocate against adoption?
I've never read anything about this, but that's an interesting question. It's hard to see how there could be any compelling argument against it in principle, but I imagine that in practice the adoption industry might have plenty of problems.
@@KaneB i think most people’s objection to it is that they want genetic children (which I want to). The idea of creating your own linage, children that are 100% yours. You can maybe say the idea is selfish but it’s obviously a big reason most people would rather have their own children, and because of that I think that it’s probably possible to make a moral argument for it. And making a baby is just practically easier I guess.
@@hasanalharaz7454 That's not usually framed as a moral objection to adoption in general though, just a reason why the individual in question would prefer not to adopt. I haven't encountered anybody who argues that there is a moral obligation not to take in children who have no suitable caregivers. Indeed, that's usually viewed as admirable, even by people who don't desire adoption for themselves.
@@hasanalharaz7454 I hear you, but it is hard for me square the two ideas of no group of people being genetically superior to another with the idea of wanting to specifically financially support one genetic lineage over another.
@@hasanalharaz7454 this wouldd be a very primal desire, for sure, but we never get to have our "own" children, every existence of human being as we knnow is rather unique and no matter how colllective they are, fundamentally, we don't really read each others' minds, in such sense, no onne is ever ours, and i doubt "I" am even mine
I don't really have any opinion on it. If it's okay to have kids, it's okay to do it through IVF. I guess it's nice that the option exists for those who want it.
@KaneB thats basically my opinion. You could probably argue that it increases happiness/utility in the world since it allowes some people to enjoy raising a child. Meanwhile, a nihilist might argue that if life is not worth living (and so on), then you should'nt give someone a life that is not worth living by letting them be born.
@@blaynefishlock Right. I don't think there is a "wrong" way to bring a person into existence, provided there isn't a significantly increased risk of harm. It doesn't matter whether you choose biological reproduction, or IVF, or miraculous conception, or making a wish to a genie in a bottle. Maybe all of those options are bad. But they stand or fall together.
For me, having children is kind of an affair of spite. An act of revolution. I know I personally would regret not having children (or disciples/pupils) because the world is not bad, people are - and I see a moral obligation in changing that. We don't have to work to survive, but capitalism sure makes us suffer.
Yes, your kid will totally be the messias🤡🤡🤡 Besides that, it is very egoistical to obligate your child to make the world better. So it became something like a tool for your wishes, a sacrifice.
@@siddhartacrowley8759AHAHAH I see you're quite the messiah yourself, perfect as can be and without imperatives. It takes more than one person to change society, my dear brother in Joshua. If I could sacrifice my firstborn such that there are less of the likes of you I would always do it. Not egotistical - doing god's work.
@@siddhartacrowley8759 cringe to be so nihilistic that you cannot even comprehend that others may have different values lmao - please let me have my own opinion, sir messiah.
Saying that it's an awful idea that we have to work or die (as if we have a gun to our heads) is a false problem. The real problem is the bad relationships and bad institutions that we have created and that govern our lives: consumerism, wars, corruption, mafia, individualism, nihilism, manipulated media, etc. On the contrary, struggling in life and trying to address those problems is a human life worth living. Being content only when you are free from pain seems like a very basic and limited view. In fact, it is illusory to think that the only life worth living is a life without pain. Pain can manifest itself in many ways: a little thirst, the sad memory of a parent's death, a stomach ache from eating too many chips at last night's party, a sore knee after scoring a goal, an arm broken when you tried to climb a tall tree at age 6, your pet's lost when it escaped from the garage because you didn't leave the door closed, your failed Math test at school, and any other example you can think of. Those pains along with our decisions about them built the human beings that we are. At least it can be said that some kind of pain is needed for us to live and understand in some practical sense what life is anyway. Finally, I must say that not wanting humanity to continue is a very sad thought. But here we are, a very small part of humanity, watching your video and voluntarily and involuntarily validating your very presence in the human realm.
It's a trivially true argument to say that if you didn't have the formative experiences you had, you wouldn't be who you are now. Like, yeah, obviously, you'd be someone else; but that's not a very interesting point. A biologically human being (an individual member of homo sapiens) who lived their entire life without experiencing any pain would not somehow fail to "be human." Their experience and how it forms them would seem to me to be just as valid as my own. Would they perhaps be distinctly difficult to relate to? Sure, but I can also say that about people who have experienced far MORE pain in their formative years than I did.
I think it's an appalling condition; I'm aware that other people assess it differently, but that's my view. To me, there is no difference in principle between a person holding a gun to my head, telling me to work or die, and material circumstances being such that I either work or die. What matters is the limitation of one's options, not the source of the limitation. I see absolutely nothing worthwhile in pain and struggle for its own sake. It's plausible that pain and struggle has instrumental benefits, since people who live without any hardship tend not to be very well-adjusted. However, if this is true, what this shows is simply that misery is inescapable; stamp out in one place, and it reappears elsewhere. This supports the pessimistic conclusion.
@@KaneB > I see absolutely nothing worthwhile in pain and struggle for its own sake. Very well said Kane. I am tired of people who try to romanticize this. In another comment I mentioned a TH-camr also from the UK called social experimentalist (he's a bit eccentric and out there but otherwise a normal dude). He has an interview with a British fellow Autistic Spasticus on AN. You'll very much enjoy it. It's him reading an essay. About an hour long.
@@JohnSmith-yt8di I am not going to claim that suffering is good for its own sake. But I do think that new experiences are good for their own sake. And a painful experience can be a new experience. That doesn’t mean that every new painful experience automatically becomes good because it is new, instead it now depends on how we weight the painfulness of the experience against how interesting the experience is. So we have one negative weight (suffering) and two positive weights (pleasure and interestingness).
I wish more breeders such as I would more silently let people do this to themselves. I see it as an important part of the process of life and human growth. Humans are highly successful creatures and no longer require as much work for survival as needed in the past. It seems reasonable that genetic and cultural selection will increase baby making dramatically in the distant future. Definitely gonna suck hard for developed countries with enormous social safety nets, but that's not a problem in my likely future.
Very interesting take, to be honest, I am quite similar in that I didn't get intrigued when i learned about reproduction, didn't want to have my own kids, not negatively rejecting, but merely a lack of such desire, and upon your mentioning of transgender which I think I also take a similar stance to yours in that I genuinely don't care which gender I was born into, there are more factors in life that makes up what life is than just the genitals, of course, we are also aware of the unfortunate social factors that comes into play, however I would also be content with the gender i was born into had I even had the idea that I was born into the wrong body. Personally, I don't have a partner, making a vasectomy an unecessary, move, had I have one, I suppose it depends on them, and there's still a part of me that wouldn't want to disappoint the partner if that was one of the things they desired for. I wonder had you been asexual, would you still bother getting a vasectomy? The part where you mentioned the feeling of being freed from the social labelling of man/ manhood made me wonder what really makes a gender that particular gender, is it the fact that it functions as a genetic material depositor? or merely the aesthetics of the organ? Is a less fertile man, less of a man than a man who is very fertile based on their sperm activity? What even is a man? Is it just the genitals? Would a "man" with a completely disfigured genital, or perhaps one that looks like a dolphin, with fins and still carries the ability of secretion of sperm still considered a man? Of course we can make it go by chromosomes, XY being the typically male, but what about the XXY, XYY or the others, are they to be each categorised into multiple different genders? At least from a purely intellectual perspective of categorisation, rather than for practicality sake
No, if I were asexual, I wouldn't have bothered with the vasectomy. The gender thing I mentioned was a nice unexpected bonus, but only a bonus. In any case, it's not as if I have any clear theory of gender here. I've just noticed a degree of comfort in my body that goes beyond merely removing the risk of pregnancy.
I am pretty cool with anyone doing vasectomy. As cool as I am with anything any random person does in his personal life. I will not marry a girl who doesn't want kids.
Before I had a child, I think I felt almost exactly the same way. I wonder if you had a child it would change your perspective at all. After I had my daughter, I feel like my life began. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.
How did you end up with a kid? An accident? Anyway, there are also plenty of parents who regret their decision. Thankfully, this is not a risk that I'll ever have to take.
I'd honestly just been having unprotected sex for so long constantly intravaginally ejaculating I thought I was sterile lol. Basically, I spent 14 years cumming inside women almost daily with no consequences. King of the world, bro.
My sons are easily the greatest things to ever happen to me, but, I also knew early after my second, that I didn't want anymore children. In fact, 5 years was my cur off point, because I didn't want children more than 5 years apart, but soon as my oldest turned 5 it seems like we were pregnant again. I planned on getting a vasectomy either way, so after my second...it was straight to the doc 😊 People tend to not understand how that can be the case, but it's one of those things yoy sometimes just know...
I found this pretty depressing to watch, TBH. It just reminds me how dysfunctional we reward-hacking humans are (to apply a term from AI-alignment research). Maybe our hypertrophied minds, despite their utility for our survival hitherto, are ultimately an evolutionary dead-end.
My feeling is that everything else is dysfunctional and a few of us humans are lucky enough to intentionally break the cycle. I am an evolutionary dead-end, and that's something I celebrate. 🥳
@@KaneBpeople viewing being child free, being an evolutionary dead end, or any number of types of lifestyles as “undesirable” really shows you how shackled they are.
So if you wish for the end of the "human project," that sounds pretty antinatalist to me, man! But I get why you'd be hesitant to take that label. So - wishing for the end of humanity - does that make you evil? Like, would you consider yourself evil or do you vibe with evil? I'm not trying to antagonize, but within a subjective moral framework where morality is decided by society/humankind as a whole, how is that not evil? You may define morality more in terms of inflicting as little suffering as possible onto others, or doing the most good unto others, etc.. Which is certainly valid and motivated by beautiful emotions and whatnot, but at the end of the day it is an emotional framework that assigns the most good to the act that causes the most positive emotions, or the least negative emotions. I think a better framework is one that preserves the most life, because all animals and most people would rather be sad than dead. Evidently, because pain is a part of life. So it seems to me morally worse to wish for the total death of a species in the future than to just be a dick in the present. Once agai, I'm Chaotic Neutral myself so I'm not passing judgement. I just want to know how you justify not being evil.
Antinatalism is the view that it is morally impermissible to reproduce. I don't make any negative moral judgment about other people's decisions to reproduce, so I'm not an antinatalist per the standard definition. If you want to consider me an antinatalist, that's fine though. I don't accept that morality is decided by society or humankind as a whole. There are plenty of moral views I hold that are unpopular. That's no reason for me to change those views; I've never particularly cared about popularity. It's worth noting, however, that even if morality is determined by humankind as a whole, nothing in principle prevents humans from deciding to cease reproducing. Granted, I doubt that this will happen anytime soon, if ever. More interestingly, it may be that most human hold moral values that entail that they ought to stop reproducing, even if they don't recognize this entailment -- I take it that this is pretty much what most arguments for antinatalism are urging. That is, antinatalists often argue that given such-and-such values that most people already accepted, you ought not to reproduce. So even if morality is determined by humankind as a whole, this isn't going to immediately secure the view that the species should continue. As for my own view, I don't see anything appealing about preserving life just for its own sake.
I for one look forward to having children, and hope to have a large and loving family! The thought of sharing the life with future, past, and present generations makes me glad to meet the day, its tragedies and triumphs alike. Unfortunately there is no set of propositions that can bestow such joy; fortunately there is none that can subtract it. It is a Way. Sorry you have trouble seeing the true goodness of the world brother!
Are you asking if I'm trans in denial? Seems very unlikely to me. My attitude has always been the same: I have no sense of internal gender identity, and I'm happy that way.
I love your videos but found your anti-natalist adjacent spiel disappointing and dispiriting. Two thoughts come to mind. The first is just that people's psychologies are different. Some people's experience of life is lighter, for some it's heavier. I don't think it's possible to say one of these ways of experiencing life is truer or more realistic - both are just what they are. For those who experience life with it's joys and sufferings more positively, it makes sense that they might want to share it. I find it sad that some people experience human existence so heavily that they see it as something generally lamentable. The second thought is that it seems to me that many people who claim to experience life negatively are lacking self awareness. They are inclined to highlight the negative, when in reality their experience is more mixed. If most us really experienced life so lopsidedly negatively, more of us would probably kill ourselves. People do, but they are a minority, and mass suicides are usually linked to particularly dire historical situations rather than the general run of human life. You could put unwillingness to die down to a mindless survival instinct, but I think it's more likely that we cling to life because we value it somehow and don't really want to die. That includes people whose lives seem, from the outside, to be worse than yours or mine. Someone might respond that they would prefer to die but refrain from suicide to avoid bringing even more pain to people who love them. Fair enough. But if someone's life is that bad and they don't want to live for themselves, I'd rather they not stick around for my sake. I hope, Mr Baker, that your life is not that bad. In spite of your poor opinion of human existence, you're making a positive contribution to the human existence of 50 odd thousand of us and helping us enjoy life a bit more. I hope knowing that brightens your days.
I have elaborated on my pessimism elsewhere; see e.g. th-cam.com/video/ADiOPuujcdQ/w-d-xo.html Two points: (1) When I'm speaking about this more carefully, and you will see this if you watch the video I linked above, I do just grant that I'm only speaking for myself and not for others. So I may simply be one of the unlucky people who has been saddled with a "heavier" psychology. I only say "may" though, because we can both play the game of your second point: it may also be that people with more positive attitudes are simply deluded. This possibility gains some support from the evidence we have for psychological biases such as optimism bias (I think this evidence is pretty weak, but it's there all the same). Additionally, in general, I actually have a fairly sunny and relaxed personality. People who know me personally are often surprised when I express my pessimistic views because it seems to conflict with how I think and behave. I've arrived at pessimism as a result of stepping back and reflecting on my life and the lives of others. So that's another reason that I'm not so sure that my experience of life is "heavier" than the norm. (2) Even if we judge that life is bad, we might still judge that death is worse. We're stuck between a rock and a hard place. It's also easy to see why most people would have a powerful fear of death, no matter how bad their lives become, since there are powerful evolutionary and cultural pressures in favour of remaining alive (this isn't a matter of a "mindless survival instinct"; but our considered values are surely influenced by our more basic evaluative tendencies). So I don't think the fact that people choose to continue living tells us much about how good their lives are. Indeed, the same point can be made for optimists. Even if we judge that life is good, we might judge that death is better. We're blessed two good options! Whether we choose life or death is going to be a matter of our comparative assessment of life vs death, not a matter of our assessment of the value of life alone or death alone.
@@KaneB It seems that your pessimism is a contention about how we should feel about life, given the prevalence of bad experiences. But statistically, feelings don’t seem to line up with that. There's an interesting article called the U-Bend of Life (you can find it on the internet) that suggests (with lots of caveats) that statistically, people get happier post middle age, even as their bodies and careers, etc., are diminishing and their “bad” experiences increasing. Your own sunny disposition in the midst of what you judge a generally bad life provides a similar example. But if happiness doesn't necessarily decline as bad experiences mount, maybe labelling them bad is too simplistic. As Sheryl Crowe might say, if it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad. Certainly life has its good and bad, but adjudicating on it as good or bad overall seems to me an impossible project. As for why people don’t kill themselves, maybe I’m missing the point about optimists, but it seems that optimists who think they have two good options don’t have much of a dilemma. Death will surely come, and they may as well enjoy life while they have access to it, just in case it offers something death doesn’t. Why pessimists don’t kill themselves is a bit trickier. Evolutionary and cultural pressures surely influence attitudes to death, but people do kill themselves, showing the pressures aren’t insurmountable. The thinking pessimist has intellectual motivation to overcome those pressures, but I suspect that very few people have killed themselves based on that intellectual conviction without being burdened at the same time by an accumulation of overwhelming feelings related to experiences like pain, illness, shame, depression, horror. And that in turn makes me suspect that the intellectual conviction by itself is not that strong, or at least is tempered by some strong doubts. The fear that death could be worse than life is interesting, and I guess that could be a strong motivator. Maybe someone who feels that life is bad but fears death will be worse will also believe never existing in the first place to be the best option of the three, so it could motivate pessimism as well as anti-natalism. But I doubt (having done no research) that most pessimist fall into this camp. I imagine most genuine pessimists about life to be welcoming of death as the lesser evil. A thought about hope. Even if life is bad, hope is pretty tenacious. As a friend of mine said years after a suicidal episode, she couldn’t’ shake the thought: “what if life gets better - like I’d feel ripped off.” I’m not saying anyone should hope. I’m saying people do, and it’s not unreasonable, even when fulfilment is highly unlikely. What reason could establish that you shouldn’t gamble on a hope when the stakes are absolute. I think that goes for your own life (hoping life might get better) or having a child (hoping their life might on balance be something they’re glad about). Maybe to some, the risk that your potential child ends up unhappy outweighs the hope that they might be glad. But such a position, while understandable, doesn’t seem to me more reasonable than it’s opposite. Here’s one thought: If I have a child and they’re happy, fantastic. If they’re unhappy, they can kill themselves, so the negative outcomes can be mitigated. But if they’re never born, they’ll never have the chance or choice. So having a kid seems a reasonable risk to take on their behalf. Disclosure: I have a kid. She’s far too young yet to give me her own judgement on her life. It’s far from perfect, but she seems on balance to be enjoying it.
Your lack of any desire to see humanity continue is irrelevant (and bafflingly to me and most people, spiritually). It's irrelevant because it will continue, for a very long time.
Irrelevant to what, exactly? It's not irrelevant to my choice to be childfree, which is what this video is about. I'm well aware that most people feel differently, and that nothing I say will make the slightest difference. I'm still going to say what I think.
The title made me scared for a sec 🫢 But I'm so glad to hear that you're still happy about it haha! Keep it up bro, I love your stuff, it helps me fall asleep at night so I have something to listen to. I love the way you articulate yourself too, it's very enjoyable
It's just occurred to me that the message of the first few minutes of this video could easily be read as: "Yes, vasectomy does make you less of a man, and that's part of why I'm so pleased with it." To be clear, the procedure doesn't make any observable difference to anything; it simply prevents you from impregnating anybody. So for anybody who cares about masculinity, there's not much to worry about.
I had to get a Psychology evaluation before I got snipped. I still don’t understand what happened if I failed the evaluation. What would the doctors say: “sir, you are to crazy to not have kids.”
It's ridiculous, isn't it? Society is super paternalistic about this, but it only seems to care about the impact on the potential parents.
@@KaneB humans are very bizarre creatures.
Man, this was way too much relatable, unbelievable. From the thing about learning about that stuff for the first time. I was repulsed by the idea of ever doing it, and was scared to think about it, while others my age thought it's funny. Mind you, I was already some kind of atheist at that age (10), so it wasn't possible to be religion indoctrination or something.
Later I changed my mind, and thought about it as a funny act of pleasure. After some time again (recently) changed it again,
so it's not only the physical act, but also the experience of bonding with someone. I have yet to feel such real affection towards another, but I wouldn't mind it casually, or would I? Not sure, maybe I am too lazy, whatever..
The thing about gender identity and sterilization making you "less of a man" just shows once again that the idea of gender has no coherent meaning, I mean it is a social construct which changes constantly, superficial form of identification, whatever. I too don't believe in gender, but exactly as you, I knew what you were going to say, am very lazy, and don't care enough to spend my time presenting as something else, what is something when there isn't anything? That would to me mean, that I am doing it out of some spite, so I do kind of reinforce the idea of gender? Nah, don't care. If I were to change my looks it wouldn't be to distance myself from "being a man", only for it's sake. I haven't really thought of myself as "a man" so it doesn't matter. Drastically changing your presentation would be inconvenient, so it's more practical to keep it as it is for now.
I never understood why people wanted to have kids, I wasn't ever able to imagine myself doing it, something completely alien to me. Kids are horrifying little creatures and they ruin everything. I was always more uncomfortable around those younger than me. There is some incomprehensible void between us, I'd rather not have to be around them. At some time I came to a new conclusion, that they are actually very stupid, wow nobody ever knew that, therefore it's stupid to get frustrated over it, so just ignore them completely.
We'll keep it at that, I've been guilty of not watching your videos enough, my forgetfulness, that's going to change!
This video felt very real. Take care
Thanks for the comment! It's nice to hear from people who share similar sentiments.
I simulatenously understand and agree with your point of view, and find this video and your extreme enthusiasm hilarious 😂
Nice to hear you enjoyed it!
As a fellow introvert with a penchant for philosophy (and might I add, little in common with your average Joe), kudos for getting so much action 👀💯
Not so much really. It's been several months so far...
I have a lot of similar feelings, but luckily I'm pretty uninterested in having sex with anyone, so I just don't.
Well of course, Commander SouthPark333Gaming -- you reproduce through cloning. Sex would just be a distraction from your pursuit of victory over the Rutans.
I suppose that antinatalism would be more accesible to people were some antinatalists, especially online, not so hostile to people with children to the point of calling them 'breeders' or such.
The neck beard would have been just as effective as a contraceptive
I had a girlfriend at the time, so not really.
I'm sure someone has mentioned this but vasectomies do have a very very small failure rate, but it does exist. There are case studies of people whose tubes recanalize a while after the procedure.
Yep. Unfortunately, no method of birth control is perfect. Vasectomy is one of the most reliable, however. It's far more reliable than condoms or the pill.
Yeah, the doc told me that I'd need a 5 year follow-up, to makes sure my body didn't "heal".
A little bit of topic but since this video intersects with the ant-Natalism and pessimism stuff.
I have thought a little bit about this scenario in which one gets one day of pleasure and one day with twice the amount of pain.
And I don’t think this is such a bad deal. After all, both days are once in a lifetime experiences, and even bad experiences I think can still be interesting experiences.
Every week I learn a new skill, Idea or fact about the world.
And especially right now, I am at a point in my life in which there was never so much change and I find it far more satisfying then the time in which every day was the same, despite the fact that it was more easier and comfortable in the past.
So maybe one’s evaluation of life can not be reduced to mere suffering and pleasure but instead new experiences may have their own positive weight like pleasure.
It takes BALLS to make that decision.
Plenty of dudes talk the antinatalist talk, not all of them literally get surgery on their testicles.
@@KaneB as a philosopher, you are quite a man of actions
@@91722854 I'm not really. I'm just *that* opposed to having kids lol
My vasectomy came very late, after forty years old, and it turns out I only had sex a few times in the subsequent fourteen years.
I had many reasons, from not wanting children that would suffer mental conditions I suffer with, to wanting to end the line of my dispicable father and grandfather.
Something that I did not expect that I have since recovered from was a deep sense of disconnection from all of humanity, like I had broken a chain that led all the way back to the beginning of life itself.
It really was an existential crisis, and it took me several years to work through it.
I have never seen this mentioned as a potential side effect of this process, so if you are considering getting this surgery it's something you may want to keep in mind.
I have the same feeling of "breaking the chain" but I derive a great deal of joy from it. I love the idea that an unbroken sequence of billions of years of reproduction ends with me. I'm sorry to hear that this was distressing for you. Certainly, a vasectomy is not a decision to take lightly!
Exactly, but everything I see about it does take it lightly. Only the benefits get mentioned.
I didn't choose to be born-
I didn't want to force that decision future generations, maybe countless in number.
@@ericvulgate7091 I have to say, this wasn't my experience. When I sought out my vasectomy, I was told several times about the potential risks, including negative psychological consequences, both in person and in the leaflets I was given. It was never presented to me as a minor decision.
Interesting.
Maybe different bc of our locations.
@@ericvulgate7091 Age might have been a factor as well. Doctors are a lot less comfortable performing vasectomies on younger men.
Interesting, I've occasionally considered getting a vasectomy for similar reasons as you but I've never gotten around to it. What was the process of getting the operation like? Was the wait time long?
Also, I've noticed you get a lot of comments about anti-natalism, especially in videos similar to this one and your AMA's. Have you ever considered making a seperate video about the topic, if not for an interest in the topic itself, but to stop getting asked about it. I think I would go mad if I was you.
The wait time as in how long I had to wait after asking for the vasectomy? It was a couple of months. The operation itself was a breeze since I had it under general anaesthesia. I got pretty lucky in that for me, there was pretty much no pain afterwards. As far as I recall, I only took paracetamol for a couple of days.
The anti-natalism comments don't bother me. I'm well aware that expressing pessimistic sentiments, and being vocal about refraining from reproduction, is bound to attract those sorts of comments. I'm fine with it. Like I said, I'm sympathetic to anti-natalism anyway.
@@KaneB Gotcha, thanks for the reply!
These sorts of videos always bring out a bunch of people seething in the comments for some reason.
With a couple of exceptions, the comments on this one have been good so far. But yes, unfortunately there is a certain crowd of people who get mad about those of us who have chosen to be child free, especially when we do it visibly.
@@KaneB Thank you at any rate for making these videos talking about your choices and reasons for them. They are interesting, well articulated, and seem correct. I have never had sex and don't expect to, but I am very sympathetic to your views on the matter (anti-natalist adjacent).
I particularly enjoyed also your discussion of being 'forced to work' towards the end. This resonated with a lot of things I have thought and tried to talk about with people.
@@KaneB I actually respect your position though because you have expressed pro-natal sentiments elsewhere in that you've said you want society to have children so to propagate it. A lot of CF people neglect that mention that.
@@JohnSmith-yt8di Yesh, it was a contractarian objection to anti-natalism. The idea was basically that, if everybody were to follow the rule not to reproduce, this would likely make my own life worse off as it would cause serious social instability.
@@KaneB And that's how I feel too. I also just can't get behind the asymmetry argument although I am a pessimist. There's a good rebuttal to it on a blog I read.
As someone who would like to raise a child in the future, I love the ability to be pluralistic and just want to be wholesome for a moment. People are pretty cool at times, and want for children doesn't define a person. We provide support here ❤
Celibacy as I found out in my early 20's after becoming a member of a new religious movement (NRM) that lasted five years where at its core principle was celibacy did to an extent correlate to emotional/social extremes. This is because arguably it plays with social and personal/internal contradictions. The group ideology was substance dualism and hinged on purity of the soul which the leaders advocated should be focused on and ordinary members ought not be drawn into "body consciousness" . Members claimed a blissful life but over time-for a few years- but a caveat emerged as most members found celibacy impossible apart from a tiny elite cohort who live the institutional high life as traditional religious elites do. This suggests that as a long term strategy it may be in the best interest for an individual to be celibate or modernisation's version through sterilisation so as to maximise personal advantage within a social system that requires implicitly a body politic to reproduce labour that only benefits (consider billionaires) a fraction of the body politic who gain tangible political power and social benefits through resource inequality. The point is that observing a NRM is like a simulation of what might be a process like an industrial society that spans for many generations where members are caste into roles from birth that may not align with their primordial instincts.
Right, I don't see how it benefits me to create another cog in the machine of labour extraction. The fact that a bunch of techbro businessmen like Elon Musk have recently been seething about population decline and the childfree movement only confirms to me that I made the right decision.
Got mine at 29, a year afrer the birth of my second son.
Easily the best decision I've ever made. I'm definitely an advocate.
This is a really cool video, thank you for sharing your perspective. I'm really glad you feel more comfortable in your body :)
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.
I got to say you basically mirror my views on pessimism and anti-natalism, and you've done a great job expounding your thoughts on them. I too can't get behind a strong AN that says life is unremittingly bad for almost everyone, but neither can I delude myself into thinking it's a net positive for most. I however will probably have children, and respect your decision to get a vasectomy.
I doubt that arguments like this really play much role in whether a person decides to have kids. It's a happy coincidence that my personal desires to refrain from reproducing happen to align with my more generally pessimistic worldview. I was childfree long before I was a pessimist.
Philosopher to castrato pipeline is real
Hi, I just wondered about the following argument and would love to know your response to it: You do seem like someone who values how good humanity is on average and would like humanity to get better over time. Even if not, I'm guessing you would certainly value humanity not becoming worse over time. I'm also assuming that you think your values are certainly better than those of most human beings living currently. Now, by making the choice of not having kids, you have ensured that future humanity will have more "worse" humans (compared to you), which is something you don't want. So you should still have children.
This argument also assumes that a child is more value-aligned with their parents than the rest of humanity. This certainly doesn't always hold, but I do think that it is a reasonable assumption on average.
Btw I'm happy that you are proud of the decision you made! Thanks for making the videos.
That's a very strange argument. If one wants future people to be aligned with one's values, having a child doesn't seem to be an effective form of doing that.
First, one could become a propagandist and devote one's life to convince others of one's values. This is a bit odd, and I'd think having honest discussions about values (where you could be corrected by others) is better. But if the goal is to maximize the number of people with the "right" values, having a child is one way of increasing the people with good values by *one*, with a lot more effort put into this one person. Doesn't seem like great return on investment.
The more serious problem is that one shouldn't see one's kids as means to this kind of end. It seems quite cruel and unfair to have a children to "outnumber" the bad people. If the child grows to disagree with one, should one resent the child for failing at its purpose?
The whole argument seems pretty silly and cruel.
It's not worth it. It's vanishingly unlikely that my child would make any discernable difference even if they did share my values. Compare voting. In a general election, my vote is very unlikely to make any difference. But that's not a big deal because all I have to do to cast a vote is walk two minutes down my road to the town hall. Now imagine a world in which casting a vote requires paying a substantial portion of my income to buy a voting machine, and waking up several times a night to provide fuel to the voting machine, and getting up every morning to drive the voting machine to its programmers, etc etc. Moreover, suppose that there is a good chance that when I cast my vote, the voting machine will spontaneously switch it to something else. In that world, I wouldn't give voting even a moment's consideration. The benefits come nowhere close to outweighing the cost.
Wait how old are you? I genuinely though you were in your 20s. And I agree with thoughts on kids. They are kind of just dumb and hard to talk to because of that. They don't understand and easily forget and don't pay attention etc. There's enough people in the world already anyways.
I'm only 18 but I have been thinking about getting a vasectomy at some point. I do think I'm maybe a bit too young to make that big of a decision quite right now but it's definitely in the horizon. Great thoughts bro
@@unwono Just turned 33
@@KaneB You look great for your age 👟
This was in interesting video! I'm a relatively new subscriber and it was refreshing to hear you own personal perspective on a topic that you holds significant meaning to you.
Having said that, I would like to contribute my own perspective on the matter. I'm roughly the same age as you (turning 31 this year) and during my teenage years my attitude mirrored yours in many aspects. I had no interest in reproduction, finding the concept rather off-putting. Whilst I had sex and enjoyed it, it never was a driving force for my life. Going into adulthood I considered vasectomy but ultimately dismissed it, reasoning that I could "change my mind later". It has to be said that even though I didn't really have a sex drive, I enjoyed pleasing my partners. To mitigate the risk of conception we employed elaborate safe-sex practices to reduce the possibility of it happening by a significant percentage.
What is interesting is that a few years later, around the age of 27-28, I had a series of profound religious/spiritual experiences coupled with a general shift in my personal outlook. I developed a parental instinct, nurtured more by experience than inherent nature. I'm now very grateful that I never got to sterilization.
The question I'm getting to is this: when doing the mental calculation and weighting the possibility of "changing your mind" against the possibility of conception when practicing safe sex when should one draw the line? It appears in your case you were positive that you'll never change your mind on such a topic. However, what advice would you give to a hypothetical person that is pondering the question?
Sorry for this tirade of a comment, many admiration and never stop making amazing content!
I make an effort not to give advice to people. So I probably wouldn't say anything to that hypothetical person. But there are a couple of things worth bearing in mind: First, there are various methods by which infertile people can still have children, for instance, you could adopt, or your partner could do it via a sperm donor. In fact, even though vasectomy should be treated as permanent, it is sometimes possible for vasectomies to be reversed. So if you did change your mind after the vasectomy, there are still be options for having children. None of these options are as easy as ordinary biological reproduction. But they are there.
Second, suppose that you change your mind, and you're unable to have children. How bad exactly would this be? There are people who desire children who are unable to have them for one reason or another. That's sad for them, but must it ruin their lives? People don't always get what they want, and most of the time, we're able to live with that. So you might want to compare the scenarios:
(1) You never want children, and you never have children
(2) You never want children, and you accidentally have children
(3) You change your mind and do want children, and you never have children
(4) You change your mind and do want children, and you do have children
Sterilization rules out (2) and (4). The risk if you don't get sterilized is scenario (2); the risk if you do get sterilized is scenario (3). It's one thing to develop a parental instinct; it's another thing for that parental instinct to be so powerful that scenario (3) would ruin your life.
More debates please. More talk with Aarvoll.
yeah some of the pleasure/pain arguments for AN are overly utilitarian focused but a lot of the deontological views for AN are interesting like the right to impose life/risk/gamble with someone else.
like imagine you could bring a human slave into the world , but guarantee the slave is happy
well its a deontic principle to be against slavery, so thats a procreation to be aganist.
nothing to do with pleasure/pain there.
a lot of antinatalist philosophers besides benatar , Julio cabrera more deontoic focused you might want to check out
Benatars asymmetry ultimatly just says its a fact that if youre not born you cant "miss out" so that 100 years of constant pleasure you talked about, well if he never existed its not like hes missing out from it either.
I could probably argue that its impossible to create life that is "100 years of pure pleasure" or even highly pleasure, life is necessarily full of entropy. you living means other creatures suffer, humans, animals. every good day we have causes someone else somewhere a bad day. There are research and studies done on this but i cant remember off top of my head i can find them and post later if anyone cares
You presented the slave case as a hypothetical, but I think this is pretty much what's happening when people decide to reproduce. Unless you're very wealthy, it's almost guaranteed that your children will be forced to work in order to survive. Is this kind of “coercion” by material circumstances as bad as coercion by an agent? No, probably not, at least not given how this has actually been practiced in our history. But I don't see these as much different in kind, and I think it's appalling that anybody is in either condition.
It doesn't help, in my view, to point out that the few people who are freed from this condition tend to have other problems. People born into super-rich families, who therefore never need to work and never face any genuine adversity: granted, they often seem narcissistic, psychopathic, unable to form meaningful relationships, etc. But all this shows is that we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. It's a tragic fact about human psychology that if we did somehow free everybody from quasi-slavery, we would end up with a bunch of other issues. There is no challenge to pessimism here!
Still, it's a hypothetical: If you COULD create a being that experiences 100,000 years of bliss in exchange for one moment of mild discomfort, it does seem at least odd to argue there's an asymmetry in favor of never bringing that being into existence. I would agree that the better argument is whether it can actually be right to create something without consent (and thus whether it can ever be right to create anything at all), but even playing Benatar's game I'm skeptical of the calculus given the video's counterexample. It does not seem logically impossible to me that 100+ years of pleasure with minimal pain is hypothetically possible for some being (possibly a simulated being, but still, that seems logically possible), and if any being can have that, more work needs to be done to show its life was not preferable to never coming into existence.
In the arena of contemplating the decision to undergo a vasectomy, one cannot help but cast a shadow of skepticism and vehement disapproval upon such a course of action. The proposition to submit oneself to the surgical alteration of one's reproductive capabilities raises a veritable cacophony of concerns, both ethical and physiological, that warrant the most rigorous scrutiny.
Foremost among these apprehensions is the palpable disquietude surrounding the irreversible nature of a vasectomy, a surgical procedure that severs the vas deferens, thus terminating the avenue for the transport of sperm. This unalterable transformation of one's reproductive anatomy is tantamount to an abdication of one's biological prerogative, a decision that vehemently rejects the primordial instinct for propagation inherent in the human species.
Furthermore, the decision to embrace a vasectomy echoes with the dissonance of environmental folly, as it betrays a blatant disregard for the imperative of genetic perpetuation. By electing to embark upon such a path, one ineluctably joins the ranks of the childless, thereby contravening the imperative of kinship and familial lineage, which have long stood as the bedrock of societal cohesion.
Additionally, the potential psychological repercussions that may accompany this decision ought not to be dismissed lightly. The profound emotional ramifications that can emerge from a vasectomy's irreversibility are a thunderstorm of existential despair, an emotional tempest that threatens to engulf the individual in a maelstrom of regret and longing.
In summation, the decision to undergo a vasectomy, in the eyes of the discerning critic, stands as a monument to misguided volition, a surrender to the sirens of convenience that resonates with disapproval and sorrow. The irreversible nature of this choice, coupled with its ecological and existential implications, renders it a decision fraught with peril, deserving of the most strenuous censure and opposition.
Congrats for your successful vasectomy !
Hi Kane have you done any videos expounding on your own pessimistic outlook? Would be cool to hear you explain why you think humanity is a failure
I express my own attitude in this video: th-cam.com/video/ADiOPuujcdQ/w-d-xo.html
I've discussed philosophical pessimism more generally here: th-cam.com/video/pK91YWOLz_s/w-d-xo.html
I think temperament wise my intuitions lean anti natalist like you, but I too wouldn’t call myself one either because my temperament is arbitrarily subjective.
It's hard to feel too bad for people being brought into existence when I know that the majority of them will not agree with my pessimistic assessment of life, and will say, if asked, that they are glad to have been born. (To be clear, this is not an objection to any particular anti-natalist argument. It's an explanation for why I don't feel strongly about anti-natalism.)
@@KaneB It's difficult for me to relate to or believe that assertion when I am not personally sure what it would even mean to feel one way or the other about having been born. It may be overly skeptical to suspect they don't know what they mean either, but it's all I've got to work with. I can conceptualize being someone else, but not being nobody at all; I wouldn't have any preferences if I didn't exist, so how can I make a comparison of my state to nonexistence? I never asked to be here, sure, and I'm not grateful to be here, but I really don't know what to think about its preferability to nothing at all.
Plus, when is the cutoff for that assessment? Should I only believe it from people older than 80? If an 8-year-old declares he's glad to have been born, does that have any bearing on his opinion 70+ years later? How do I weight these claims? What will my final opinion on things matter in the instant before I die?
@@Uryvichk Hmm. I don't see much problem with understanding the claim, to be honest. In general, I don't need to actually experience something in order to compare it to things I have experienced. I've never been infected with plague, but I'm very confident that it would be miserable, and I'm glad that it's never happened. I suppose the difference is that with plague, I can imagine what it would be like to have plague, whereas I can't imagine what it would be like not to exist since there is nothing it is like not to exist. Even so, there doesn't seem to be any difficulty conceptualising features of the scenario where I never exist. For instance, had I never existed, I would never have experienced any pleasures or pains. That claim seems easily understandable and straightforwardly true.
You seem pretty young how do you know you won’t change your mind about this later on and regret it? It feels rash. Feelings, ideas, and opinions change with age
I was 31 when I had my vasectomy, and I had been stubbornly childfree for decades, since the age of 9 at least. Not once have I wavered on it. Not once have I felt even the slightest hint of a parental instinct. I'm not going to change my mind.
Do I *know* that I'm not going to change my mind? Well, in general, I find arguments for skepticism compelling. I'm not sure whether I *know* that the sun will rise tomorrow or that the next sip of water will quench my thirst rather than poison me. I'd be less surprised by these things turning out false than by me changing my mind about children.
Can you make a video on paternalism and bodily autonomy?
I won't make any promises but that would be a cool topic, yeah.
@@KaneB
Cheers, I'll keep an eye out in case.
I suspect there might even be a politcal angle on the topic, such as with lowering the voting age.
I don’t need vasectomy because I don’t have sex 🤯
I sometimes feel like it would make life a lot easier if I just didn't have any sexual desire.
@@KaneB me too, but i just jerk off fast and it’s gone for at least 2-3 days
felt actual discomfort in my normal working balls watching this
I for one like kids so i didn't relate to the sentiment, but i'm genuinely happy it worked for you! Totally on board with androgynous self-image though, and also really lazy to do anything about it other than grow my hair long which is free lol.
Thanks! I hope you manage to get a nice big family (or small, whichever is your preference lol)
7:30 Average teenager experience 😂
7:20 Haha, for me I learned about the process of "making a child" at 8~ years old from a science encyclopedia and my reaction was like "Wow, isn't it dirty?!" and that was the first time I epistemically ignored the science, after hearing about "sex" from my friends I have checked again the encyclopedia just to be sure.
I think there is a thing to point out that if "the world is a bad place to exist" if they don't like the game they can simply quit, the only challenge is that living instinct but just looking at the number of people who "does find life not terrible enough to overcome their living instinct" shows that it is still a good deal for newborn to try out -especially in the developed countries-
I find myself having A very different view and outlook from your decision and I have to wonder why you think you won’t end up with kids ? You seem very convinced that because you can’t make kids that it’s not going to happen and you seem to thank yourself for saving yourself from making a mistake even though from my perspective all you have done is taken away the choice
The only way it could happen now is if I decide to adopt. I have a greater chance of being struck by lightning than that happening, so it's not something I worry about.
Would you still get a vasectomy if you were gay/ had one sexual partner who can't have kids?
@@happyfullfridge I probably wouldn't have bothered in that case.
13:00 I think I would describe myself as antinatalist-adjacent, but it's not quite for the same reasons. In fact, I honestly find Benatar's asymmetry argument quite compelling, or at least, as compelling as any ethical argument can be for a moral antirealist. I would even go as far as to say that if antinatalism was defined as "Procreating is always immoral *in the context of* the person being created", I would begrudgingly call myself an antinatalist.
But it's not. At least, in most antinatalist circles I've engaged with, and for most antinatalists I've talked to, antinatalism is the broader "Procreating is always immoral *per se* .". And that is my issue.
For example, there's this hypothetical question. You are a ruler of a small, peaceful country, and an expansionist empire is creeping up to your borders. Soon it will invade and take over your people, and it's known to treat conquered nations awfully. You do, however, have an option to avert this: you can marry into the imperial family and produce an heir to secure peaceful relations. Should you do this? And I can't, for the life of me, see how "no" is the right answer.
One way to get to a “no” answer would be to appeal to a strict Kantian view about the impermissibility of treating people as means. (FWIW, I think it's fine to refrain from reproduction in the scenario. I also think it's fine to refrain from pulling the lever in trolley cases, no matter how many people you stack on one side of the tracks.)
I take anti-natalism to include the view that reproduction is almost always wrong, or that it's wrong in the sorts of circumstances in which almost all humans live. As far as I know, even Benatar grants that reproduction can be permissible in some circumstances; I'm pretty sure he would agree with your judgement about the hypothetical scenario that you describe. His view is that reproduction is always a harm to the person coming into existence, but this harm might, in extreme cases, be outweighed by other factors. Similarly, a person can be pro-life even if they think that there are extreme cases where abortion is permissible, such as when the pregnancy threatens the mother’s life.
@@KaneB True, I guess I was being ambiguously hyperbolic with "I can't see how". A strict ethical interdiction on using people as means would get you there.
My point was more on the lines of, *this* is what most antinatalists I've talked to argue is the bullet you have to swallow to be an antinatalist, and it's too big of a bullet for me to swallow.
I am actually (pleasantly) surprised that Benatar wouldn't swallow that bullet either.
People that receive vasectomies are similar to vegans in the sense that they have to remind you of it every chance they get.
Yes. That's because I am in fact better than fertile men, and it's important that the whole world knows this.
Most don't discuss it much.
I don't.
There are a lot more of us around than you are aware of.
@@ericvulgate7091 okay Eric
@@ericvulgate7091 it’s funny that while you’re trying to appear as if you don’t talk about it, you still expressed that you’ve had a vasectomy. 😉
people with kids/people who want kids will blabber on and on and on about their (future) family. You probably just don't notice it since its the cultural norm.
on a slightly different topic, have you looked into philosophy regarding adoption?
I'm somewhat suspicious that everyone seems to unanimously agree that responsible adoption is a morally virtuous act. I also believe that, but whenever 100% of people have the same moral position on an issue I can't help but feel like we're overlooking something.
Have any philosophers tried to play devil's advocate against adoption?
I've never read anything about this, but that's an interesting question. It's hard to see how there could be any compelling argument against it in principle, but I imagine that in practice the adoption industry might have plenty of problems.
@@KaneB i think most people’s objection to it is that they want genetic children (which I want to). The idea of creating your own linage, children that are 100% yours. You can maybe say the idea is selfish but it’s obviously a big reason most people would rather have their own children, and because of that I think that it’s probably possible to make a moral argument for it. And making a baby is just practically easier I guess.
@@hasanalharaz7454 That's not usually framed as a moral objection to adoption in general though, just a reason why the individual in question would prefer not to adopt. I haven't encountered anybody who argues that there is a moral obligation not to take in children who have no suitable caregivers. Indeed, that's usually viewed as admirable, even by people who don't desire adoption for themselves.
@@hasanalharaz7454 I hear you, but it is hard for me square the two ideas of no group of people being genetically superior to another with the idea of wanting to specifically financially support one genetic lineage over another.
@@hasanalharaz7454 this wouldd be a very primal desire, for sure, but we never get to have our "own" children, every existence of human being as we knnow is rather unique and no matter how colllective they are, fundamentally, we don't really read each others' minds, in such sense, no onne is ever ours, and i doubt "I" am even mine
What do you think of IVF? You should make a video about it if you are so inclined.
I don't really have any opinion on it. If it's okay to have kids, it's okay to do it through IVF. I guess it's nice that the option exists for those who want it.
@KaneB thats basically my opinion. You could probably argue that it increases happiness/utility in the world since it allowes some people to enjoy raising a child. Meanwhile, a nihilist might argue that if life is not worth living (and so on), then you should'nt give someone a life that is not worth living by letting them be born.
@@blaynefishlock Right. I don't think there is a "wrong" way to bring a person into existence, provided there isn't a significantly increased risk of harm. It doesn't matter whether you choose biological reproduction, or IVF, or miraculous conception, or making a wish to a genie in a bottle. Maybe all of those options are bad. But they stand or fall together.
For me, having children is kind of an affair of spite. An act of revolution. I know I personally would regret not having children (or disciples/pupils) because the world is not bad, people are - and I see a moral obligation in changing that. We don't have to work to survive, but capitalism sure makes us suffer.
Yes, your kid will totally be the messias🤡🤡🤡
Besides that, it is very egoistical to obligate your child to make the world better. So it became something like a tool for your wishes, a sacrifice.
@@siddhartacrowley8759AHAHAH I see you're quite the messiah yourself, perfect as can be and without imperatives. It takes more than one person to change society, my dear brother in Joshua. If I could sacrifice my firstborn such that there are less of the likes of you I would always do it. Not egotistical - doing god's work.
@@marks7037 You are delusional.
@@siddhartacrowley8759 cringe to be so nihilistic that you cannot even comprehend that others may have different values lmao - please let me have my own opinion, sir messiah.
What's your opinion on Stop Having Kids community?
I don't know enough about that specific organization to have any opinion on them.
Won't last the century I'll tell you that.
Saying that it's an awful idea that we have to work or die (as if we have a gun to our heads) is a false problem. The real problem is the bad relationships and bad institutions that we have created and that govern our lives: consumerism, wars, corruption, mafia, individualism, nihilism, manipulated media, etc. On the contrary, struggling in life and trying to address those problems is a human life worth living.
Being content only when you are free from pain seems like a very basic and limited view. In fact, it is illusory to think that the only life worth living is a life without pain. Pain can manifest itself in many ways: a little thirst, the sad memory of a parent's death, a stomach ache from eating too many chips at last night's party, a sore knee after scoring a goal, an arm broken when you tried to climb a tall tree at age 6, your pet's lost when it escaped from the garage because you didn't leave the door closed, your failed Math test at school, and any other example you can think of. Those pains along with our decisions about them built the human beings that we are. At least it can be said that some kind of pain is needed for us to live and understand in some practical sense what life is anyway.
Finally, I must say that not wanting humanity to continue is a very sad thought. But here we are, a very small part of humanity, watching your video and voluntarily and involuntarily validating your very presence in the human realm.
It's a trivially true argument to say that if you didn't have the formative experiences you had, you wouldn't be who you are now. Like, yeah, obviously, you'd be someone else; but that's not a very interesting point. A biologically human being (an individual member of homo sapiens) who lived their entire life without experiencing any pain would not somehow fail to "be human." Their experience and how it forms them would seem to me to be just as valid as my own. Would they perhaps be distinctly difficult to relate to? Sure, but I can also say that about people who have experienced far MORE pain in their formative years than I did.
I think it's an appalling condition; I'm aware that other people assess it differently, but that's my view. To me, there is no difference in principle between a person holding a gun to my head, telling me to work or die, and material circumstances being such that I either work or die. What matters is the limitation of one's options, not the source of the limitation.
I see absolutely nothing worthwhile in pain and struggle for its own sake. It's plausible that pain and struggle has instrumental benefits, since people who live without any hardship tend not to be very well-adjusted. However, if this is true, what this shows is simply that misery is inescapable; stamp out in one place, and it reappears elsewhere. This supports the pessimistic conclusion.
@@KaneB > I see absolutely nothing worthwhile in pain and struggle for its own sake.
Very well said Kane. I am tired of people who try to romanticize this. In another comment I mentioned a TH-camr also from the UK called social experimentalist (he's a bit eccentric and out there but otherwise a normal dude). He has an interview with a British fellow Autistic Spasticus on AN. You'll very much enjoy it. It's him reading an essay. About an hour long.
@@JohnSmith-yt8di Thanks for the recommendation!
@@JohnSmith-yt8di
I am not going to claim that suffering is good for its own sake.
But I do think that new experiences are good for their own sake.
And a painful experience can be a new experience.
That doesn’t mean that every new painful experience automatically becomes good because it is new, instead it now depends on how we weight the painfulness of the experience against how interesting the experience is.
So we have one negative weight (suffering) and two positive weights (pleasure and interestingness).
I wish more breeders such as I would more silently let people do this to themselves. I see it as an important part of the process of life and human growth. Humans are highly successful creatures and no longer require as much work for survival as needed in the past. It seems reasonable that genetic and cultural selection will increase baby making dramatically in the distant future. Definitely gonna suck hard for developed countries with enormous social safety nets, but that's not a problem in my likely future.
Very interesting take, to be honest, I am quite similar in that I didn't get intrigued when i learned about reproduction, didn't want to have my own kids, not negatively rejecting, but merely a lack of such desire, and upon your mentioning of transgender which I think I also take a similar stance to yours in that I genuinely don't care which gender I was born into, there are more factors in life that makes up what life is than just the genitals, of course, we are also aware of the unfortunate social factors that comes into play, however I would also be content with the gender i was born into had I even had the idea that I was born into the wrong body. Personally, I don't have a partner, making a vasectomy an unecessary, move, had I have one, I suppose it depends on them, and there's still a part of me that wouldn't want to disappoint the partner if that was one of the things they desired for. I wonder had you been asexual, would you still bother getting a vasectomy? The part where you mentioned the feeling of being freed from the social labelling of man/ manhood made me wonder what really makes a gender that particular gender, is it the fact that it functions as a genetic material depositor? or merely the aesthetics of the organ? Is a less fertile man, less of a man than a man who is very fertile based on their sperm activity? What even is a man? Is it just the genitals? Would a "man" with a completely disfigured genital, or perhaps one that looks like a dolphin, with fins and still carries the ability of secretion of sperm still considered a man? Of course we can make it go by chromosomes, XY being the typically male, but what about the XXY, XYY or the others, are they to be each categorised into multiple different genders? At least from a purely intellectual perspective of categorisation, rather than for practicality sake
No, if I were asexual, I wouldn't have bothered with the vasectomy. The gender thing I mentioned was a nice unexpected bonus, but only a bonus. In any case, it's not as if I have any clear theory of gender here. I've just noticed a degree of comfort in my body that goes beyond merely removing the risk of pregnancy.
I am pretty cool with anyone doing vasectomy. As cool as I am with anything any random person does in his personal life.
I will not marry a girl who doesn't want kids.
Before I had a child, I think I felt almost exactly the same way. I wonder if you had a child it would change your perspective at all. After I had my daughter, I feel like my life began. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.
I guess it’s not out of the question but yeah I’m with Kane, I’d rather kill myself
How did you end up with a kid? An accident?
Anyway, there are also plenty of parents who regret their decision. Thankfully, this is not a risk that I'll ever have to take.
I'd honestly just been having unprotected sex for so long constantly intravaginally ejaculating I thought I was sterile lol. Basically, I spent 14 years cumming inside women almost daily with no consequences. King of the world, bro.
My sons are easily the greatest things to ever happen to me, but, I also knew early after my second, that I didn't want anymore children. In fact, 5 years was my cur off point, because I didn't want children more than 5 years apart, but soon as my oldest turned 5 it seems like we were pregnant again. I planned on getting a vasectomy either way, so after my second...it was straight to the doc 😊
People tend to not understand how that can be the case, but it's one of those things yoy sometimes just know...
@@TheRealisticNihilist I find it hard to believe that you were as opposed to having kids as you claim, in that case.
I found this pretty depressing to watch, TBH. It just reminds me how dysfunctional we reward-hacking humans are (to apply a term from AI-alignment research). Maybe our hypertrophied minds, despite their utility for our survival hitherto, are ultimately an evolutionary dead-end.
My feeling is that everything else is dysfunctional and a few of us humans are lucky enough to intentionally break the cycle. I am an evolutionary dead-end, and that's something I celebrate. 🥳
@@KaneBpeople viewing being child free, being an evolutionary dead end, or any number of types of lifestyles as “undesirable” really shows you how shackled they are.
If you want an even more pessimistic spin on this, read Zapffe.
So if you wish for the end of the "human project," that sounds pretty antinatalist to me, man! But I get why you'd be hesitant to take that label.
So - wishing for the end of humanity - does that make you evil? Like, would you consider yourself evil or do you vibe with evil? I'm not trying to antagonize, but within a subjective moral framework where morality is decided by society/humankind as a whole, how is that not evil?
You may define morality more in terms of inflicting as little suffering as possible onto others, or doing the most good unto others, etc.. Which is certainly valid and motivated by beautiful emotions and whatnot, but at the end of the day it is an emotional framework that assigns the most good to the act that causes the most positive emotions, or the least negative emotions. I think a better framework is one that preserves the most life, because all animals and most people would rather be sad than dead. Evidently, because pain is a part of life.
So it seems to me morally worse to wish for the total death of a species in the future than to just be a dick in the present. Once agai, I'm Chaotic Neutral myself so I'm not passing judgement. I just want to know how you justify not being evil.
Antinatalism is the view that it is morally impermissible to reproduce. I don't make any negative moral judgment about other people's decisions to reproduce, so I'm not an antinatalist per the standard definition. If you want to consider me an antinatalist, that's fine though.
I don't accept that morality is decided by society or humankind as a whole. There are plenty of moral views I hold that are unpopular. That's no reason for me to change those views; I've never particularly cared about popularity. It's worth noting, however, that even if morality is determined by humankind as a whole, nothing in principle prevents humans from deciding to cease reproducing. Granted, I doubt that this will happen anytime soon, if ever. More interestingly, it may be that most human hold moral values that entail that they ought to stop reproducing, even if they don't recognize this entailment -- I take it that this is pretty much what most arguments for antinatalism are urging. That is, antinatalists often argue that given such-and-such values that most people already accepted, you ought not to reproduce. So even if morality is determined by humankind as a whole, this isn't going to immediately secure the view that the species should continue. As for my own view, I don't see anything appealing about preserving life just for its own sake.
I for one look forward to having children, and hope to have a large and loving family! The thought of sharing the life with future, past, and present generations makes me glad to meet the day, its tragedies and triumphs alike.
Unfortunately there is no set of propositions that can bestow such joy; fortunately there is none that can subtract it. It is a Way. Sorry you have trouble seeing the true goodness of the world brother!
Are you in a hat and a jacket because it is so cold 🥶 in your room?
It's chilly here, yeah
@@KaneB take care, bro.
🥚?
Are you asking if I'm trans in denial? Seems very unlikely to me. My attitude has always been the same: I have no sense of internal gender identity, and I'm happy that way.
"I hate children" very dark statement 💀
ff
Two minutes in and I just feel immensely embarrassed for you.
Why
th-cam.com/video/UnyBJJI2eqs/w-d-xo.html
did you just sleep through those 2 minutes?
But what if you want kids later?
There will always be children who need parents.
What do parents usually say when you ask them, "but what if you decide later that having kids was a mistake?"
@@KaneB “I can always start again, make another kid.”
@@G7NoVaS Huh? Why would you make another kid if you've decided that having kids was a mistake?
@@KaneB To try again
Oof
Cringe, unsubscribed
Good. It's important to clear out the chaff every now and then.
Just to let you know, I removed your response, and I will remove any other responses you make here. I am King of this channel so I get the last word 👑
@@KaneB😢
I love your videos but found your anti-natalist adjacent spiel disappointing and dispiriting. Two thoughts come to mind.
The first is just that people's psychologies are different. Some people's experience of life is lighter, for some it's heavier. I don't think it's possible to say one of these ways of experiencing life is truer or more realistic - both are just what they are. For those who experience life with it's joys and sufferings more positively, it makes sense that they might want to share it. I find it sad that some people experience human existence so heavily that they see it as something generally lamentable.
The second thought is that it seems to me that many people who claim to experience life negatively are lacking self awareness. They are inclined to highlight the negative, when in reality their experience is more mixed. If most us really experienced life so lopsidedly negatively, more of us would probably kill ourselves. People do, but they are a minority, and mass suicides are usually linked to particularly dire historical situations rather than the general run of human life. You could put unwillingness to die down to a mindless survival instinct, but I think it's more likely that we cling to life because we value it somehow and don't really want to die. That includes people whose lives seem, from the outside, to be worse than yours or mine. Someone might respond that they would prefer to die but refrain from suicide to avoid bringing even more pain to people who love them. Fair enough. But if someone's life is that bad and they don't want to live for themselves, I'd rather they not stick around for my sake.
I hope, Mr Baker, that your life is not that bad. In spite of your poor opinion of human existence, you're making a positive contribution to the human existence of 50 odd thousand of us and helping us enjoy life a bit more. I hope knowing that brightens your days.
I have elaborated on my pessimism elsewhere; see e.g. th-cam.com/video/ADiOPuujcdQ/w-d-xo.html
Two points: (1) When I'm speaking about this more carefully, and you will see this if you watch the video I linked above, I do just grant that I'm only speaking for myself and not for others. So I may simply be one of the unlucky people who has been saddled with a "heavier" psychology. I only say "may" though, because we can both play the game of your second point: it may also be that people with more positive attitudes are simply deluded. This possibility gains some support from the evidence we have for psychological biases such as optimism bias (I think this evidence is pretty weak, but it's there all the same). Additionally, in general, I actually have a fairly sunny and relaxed personality. People who know me personally are often surprised when I express my pessimistic views because it seems to conflict with how I think and behave. I've arrived at pessimism as a result of stepping back and reflecting on my life and the lives of others. So that's another reason that I'm not so sure that my experience of life is "heavier" than the norm.
(2) Even if we judge that life is bad, we might still judge that death is worse. We're stuck between a rock and a hard place. It's also easy to see why most people would have a powerful fear of death, no matter how bad their lives become, since there are powerful evolutionary and cultural pressures in favour of remaining alive (this isn't a matter of a "mindless survival instinct"; but our considered values are surely influenced by our more basic evaluative tendencies). So I don't think the fact that people choose to continue living tells us much about how good their lives are. Indeed, the same point can be made for optimists. Even if we judge that life is good, we might judge that death is better. We're blessed two good options! Whether we choose life or death is going to be a matter of our comparative assessment of life vs death, not a matter of our assessment of the value of life alone or death alone.
@@KaneB It seems that your pessimism is a contention about how we should feel about life, given the prevalence of bad experiences. But statistically, feelings don’t seem to line up with that. There's an interesting article called the U-Bend of Life (you can find it on the internet) that suggests (with lots of caveats) that statistically, people get happier post middle age, even as their bodies and careers, etc., are diminishing and their “bad” experiences increasing. Your own sunny disposition in the midst of what you judge a generally bad life provides a similar example. But if happiness doesn't necessarily decline as bad experiences mount, maybe labelling them bad is too simplistic. As Sheryl Crowe might say, if it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad. Certainly life has its good and bad, but adjudicating on it as good or bad overall seems to me an impossible project.
As for why people don’t kill themselves, maybe I’m missing the point about optimists, but it seems that optimists who think they have two good options don’t have much of a dilemma. Death will surely come, and they may as well enjoy life while they have access to it, just in case it offers something death doesn’t. Why pessimists don’t kill themselves is a bit trickier. Evolutionary and cultural pressures surely influence attitudes to death, but people do kill themselves, showing the pressures aren’t insurmountable. The thinking pessimist has intellectual motivation to overcome those pressures, but I suspect that very few people have killed themselves based on that intellectual conviction without being burdened at the same time by an accumulation of overwhelming feelings related to experiences like pain, illness, shame, depression, horror. And that in turn makes me suspect that the intellectual conviction by itself is not that strong, or at least is tempered by some strong doubts.
The fear that death could be worse than life is interesting, and I guess that could be a strong motivator. Maybe someone who feels that life is bad but fears death will be worse will also believe never existing in the first place to be the best option of the three, so it could motivate pessimism as well as anti-natalism. But I doubt (having done no research) that most pessimist fall into this camp. I imagine most genuine pessimists about life to be welcoming of death as the lesser evil.
A thought about hope. Even if life is bad, hope is pretty tenacious. As a friend of mine said years after a suicidal episode, she couldn’t’ shake the thought: “what if life gets better - like I’d feel ripped off.” I’m not saying anyone should hope. I’m saying people do, and it’s not unreasonable, even when fulfilment is highly unlikely. What reason could establish that you shouldn’t gamble on a hope when the stakes are absolute. I think that goes for your own life (hoping life might get better) or having a child (hoping their life might on balance be something they’re glad about). Maybe to some, the risk that your potential child ends up unhappy outweighs the hope that they might be glad. But such a position, while understandable, doesn’t seem to me more reasonable than it’s opposite. Here’s one thought: If I have a child and they’re happy, fantastic. If they’re unhappy, they can kill themselves, so the negative outcomes can be mitigated. But if they’re never born, they’ll never have the chance or choice. So having a kid seems a reasonable risk to take on their behalf. Disclosure: I have a kid. She’s far too young yet to give me her own judgement on her life. It’s far from perfect, but she seems on balance to be enjoying it.
Your lack of any desire to see humanity continue is irrelevant (and bafflingly to me and most people, spiritually). It's irrelevant because it will continue, for a very long time.
Irrelevant to what, exactly? It's not irrelevant to my choice to be childfree, which is what this video is about. I'm well aware that most people feel differently, and that nothing I say will make the slightest difference. I'm still going to say what I think.
The title made me scared for a sec 🫢 But I'm so glad to hear that you're still happy about it haha!
Keep it up bro, I love your stuff, it helps me fall asleep at night so I have something to listen to. I love the way you articulate yourself too, it's very enjoyable
Thank you!