What Happens When Global Human Population Peaks?
Sustained below-replacement fertility will mean tens of billions of lives not lived over the next few centuries — many lives that could have been wonderful for the people who would have lived them and by your standards, too.
That line makes my skin crawl.
I am not quiet about my antinatalist beliefs. More than any other belief I hold, these have alienated me from people that either a) have children, b) want children, or c) have never questioned why someone would want fewer people in the world.
Thing is, my antinatalism doesn’t exist in a vacuum. I don’t wish for the human race to go extinct, which means I’m not against the entire concept of having children. I’m against having children in the context of our current climate, of our civilization, and in large part because I know people will never stop breeding (though this article seems to suggest otherwise). My antinatalism is both contextual and aspirational.
I’m not stupid. I get why this triggers people that have children or want them, but we as a culture have forgotten how to get along with people that hold different beliefs than our own. (I, a liberal, am friends with many conservatives — something my liberal cohort seem to be having a harder and harder time tolerating. Strangely, my conservative friends, though none of them are diehard Trumpsters, don’t seem to have the same hang-ups… grist for a later mill.) Plainly: it’s impossible to be in your late 30s and not have friends that have children.
But my friends that want children, and specifically want their own biological children… That still triggers much of my self-righteous ire. Why — why?! — when we know there are so many children in the foster/adoption systems that are already born, why do people insist on having their own? It’s the same feelings triggered by people who only adopt puppies and kittens. I have experience managing animal shelters — it’s always the older animals that get left behind in kennels and cages. Consequently, those are the animals I love. I am, as you can imagine, pro-adoption.
An argument I often hear from the opposing side is this: I want something, be it a child or a dog, that I can shape and mold. I want the experience of having the utmost control over this creature. Hell, my parents did that when they had me, and they did so very intentionally, perhaps to the detriment of some of their other relationships. I sympathize with this urge. I too would love the experience of having a creature I can shape completely, passing along the best qualities that were passed down to me. I adopted my current dog when she was just shy of two — the youngest animal I’ve yet had — and it’s been a delight to see her open up to the world, and I wince every time I pat her on the head or I introduce her to a tall man — each triggering a reaction born of abuse she suffered before I had her. Do I wish I could spare her those experiences? Absolutely.
But ultimately, I derive joy from knowing that she’s seen some shit and that only makes us luckier to be in each other’s lives. I put down a dog a few months ago — he was an old man when I adopted him, neglected and full of cancer — but gosh, the appreciation he had for our time together was undeniable, an appreciation born of relational experience. He knew love because he knew the absence of it.
That is the foundation of my antinatalism. I’m against the birthing of new people until the ones that are already here can have a chance to be loved. We all deserve it.