i don’t personally love seeing antinatalism stuff on my feed especially since it tends to attract really nasty proto-eugenics types
can we not, or at the bare minimum mark this nsfw?
I don’t want to continue my bloodline because of looming threat of climate change.
And also cause I’m ugly and have self-esteem issues.
What’s eugenics gotta do with it?
I’m ugly and have self-esteem issues
That’s eugenics. Choosing not to reproduce for genetic reasons.
yes. and to be clear, it’s not eugenics to make that choice yourself. problem starts as soon as it becomes about others though. seen far too many internet conversations go from
- “i won’t reproduce” to
- “it’s my responsibility not to reproduce” to
- “it’s our responsibility not to reproduce” to
- “the poor and disabled should be sterilized.”
this post is already getting pretty damn close to step 3 right there. reddit was awful for this so i encourage us to just be aware when stuff like this comes up.
Choosing to not have kids yourself, for whatever reason, is definitely not eugenics. I don’t even get how you’d come to this idea.
Alternately: choosing to reproduce for genetic reasons. Positive eugenics is still eugenics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or promoting those judged to be superior.
Emphasis mine, though seems people rarely get called out for the latter.
/gen is this sarcasm or are you not aware that you answered your question with your second sentence :(
Curious about your age and social group. Pretty much everyone I associate with doesn’t want to have kids, usually citing the world their children would inherit. These definitely aren’t the type of people that support eugenics, in any way. Are you of the belief that we should be increasing the world’s population? If so, why?
You need to go learn about Demographic Transition. The world’s population is naturally going to cap itself this century.
no, i have no belief regarding the world’s population in either direction. this comment pretty much explains the rest of my position.
I’ll be honest it was a huge question that hung over my wife and I when we were trying to decide whether to have kids or not. But we were in our mid 30s and it was a ‘now or never’ type situation.
Believe it not there is positives in raising kids. We’re definitely not judgemental of people who decide they don’t want to. But I love my kids more than I knew it was possible. And we’re trying to raise them with an understanding of the world that’s a bit broader than the ra-ra pro-capital values we were taught as kids.
this community refuses to put slurs behind nsfw tags but idk i hope u can convince some
yeah i would also support putting slurs behind nsfw tags that kind of seems obvious to me wow
One perk of running my own instance is that I can just ban ppl that post slurs outside nsfw tags & without CWs 👀😎
Sorry - genuinely don’t understand this one. What’s the connection? No kids means… no future workers?
No future workers. No future consumers (including being bent over a barrel for essential goods). No future taxpayers. No future people to fight their wars.
You (and a great many number of people) disagree with it. I’m simply explaining the concept.
The point for people adopting this mindset isn’t to win. It’s too avoid losing. It’s a risk management strategy.
“Slave” like any word has contextual meaning. In this context I’m using it to refer to the workers who find themselves caught in a coercive political-economic system. Other similar words are wage slave, proletariat, or just working class. The point is that there is an involuntary aspect which likens it to slavery in the more narrow sense. (The narrow meaning of slave I have in mind being “someone forced into labor without pay”.)
All that said, in the U.S. there are still slaves as defined narrowly as people who are forced to work without pay. Slavery is used in prison systems, for example, and is not uncommon among human trafficking victims and immigrants (e.g. read Tomatoland). If your children are women, indigenous, black, are born or become disabled, or belong to various other minority statuses they are at even greater risk of getting swallowed into those forms of “literal” slavery as well.
The labor market is a market - that means it is regulated by supply and demand.
Now, there’s a demand for workers.
Now, think about what happens when the supply goes down - prices go up.
In other words: If there are fewer workers on the labor market, that means the price for labor goes up, in other words: wages go up.
I think it’s more like, can’t take advantage of me if I’m not born. It’s a little odd to me as well.
I got more of a, “You can’t continue to take advantage of us if we don’t have anymore children and kill off your workforce through gained apathy to our future.” Kinda vibe.
It helps if you look at it from the perspective of the capitalist class. Workers are a form of free capital. Capitalists don’t have to assume any of the burdens involved in creating life, raising a child, acculturating them to social standards that make them suitable workers, etc. They don’t even have to pay for the education or training that makes them capable as human capital in various industrial contexts.
All those costs are dumped onto the working classes, not just as parents (usually the woman) who are expected to deliver a baby, nurse the baby, raise the resulting child until they are the age of the majority all without any wages, access to benefits like retirement plans or health insurance, etc. but also onto taxpayers who subsidize the rest of the costs outside of the home such as their schooling and transportation to the schools.
There is a huge leverage here that the working class does not take by organizing the production of themselves. If we all agreed to not have children and demanded fair compensation for any new production of human capital, society would be much more just and the capitalist class would have less room to exploit us.
i think this is also the reason the far right pushes so hard against contraception and abortion.
also the marxist concept of reserve army of labour: the more imporvished and desperate workers are lining up for shitty jobs to survive, the less then can get away with paying.
this might be the saddest and dumbest thing i’ve ever seen.
there’s immigration. when birthrates are too low they’ll just open up immigration.
even if there wasn’t a simple and straightforward response with historical precedent that hamstrings the sentiment expressed in the op, it’s insanely depressing that anyone would ever think to pen the words “i’ll kill myself to hurt you!” as anything other than the tragic, diseased ravings of a person abused and neglected by everyone around them.
Tf?
I mean I don’t want any kids, but what the fuck is that supposed to mean? Eugenics for poor people?
Fuck yeah. I got fixed a few years after the ACA (Obamacare) was enacted. Prior to the ACA almost no providers covered voluntary sterilization, or there were difficult hoops to jump. Now I make a point to scream to all my ladies in the states, your health insurance is absolutely REQUIRED to provide coverage for female sterilization.
While this is noble of you, it is absolutely harder to get a hysterectomy than a vasectomy. Not because insurance won’t cover it, but because many doctors won’t do it unless you’ve had kids, or a husband’s “permission”, or are older.
Yeah I hear you, I live in the PNW and it still took me three obgyns before a doctor would finally approve. At the time I was a child free never pregnant 22 year old,. The doctor still required that I write a letter stating I understand it’s irreversible. Still pretty condescending imo. You aren’t wrong, it’s hard and depending where you are in the us impossible to access humane women’s healthcare.
But you are wrong to assume women seeking sterilizations all get hysterectomies. There are at least a handful of options, I got Essure but I think that it’s no longer on the market. I walked out of my appointment, still more of an ordeal for ladies but not necessarily as dramatic as a hysterectomy.
That’s a pretty big decision for a 22 year old. I understand your point about it feeling condescending, but I can’t help but feel like the doctor was doing you a massive favor. It may have been an inconvenience but that’s better than the chance of a lifetime of regret.
