this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2021
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Anarchism

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Why does there seem to be a connection between vegan anarchism and anti-natalism? The idea of anti-natalism makes me incredibly depressed, and I do not agree with it, but I'm open to commentary and debate.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 years ago (1 children)

Civilization is collapsing and taking nature with it. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism - from a vegan standpoint and a collapse standpoint. Each human is another consumer and contributes to the destruction. It can't be helped in this system. So right now we need less not more. And children are being born today that will likely suffer tremendously due to climate collapse in their lives. Even without collapse, more humans means more animal harm. I think those are some of the common ideas.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 years ago (1 children)

That just sounds like Malthusian / eco-fascist lines of thought.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 children)

ethnic genocide to help reduce climate change is quite different from not having children, because the latter entails literally no suffering, in fact, any notion of suffering of an unexisting human is meaningless and void

a good analogy would be choosing to abort children with genetic defects, because they will suffer their entire lives and/or possibly need things that would then be unavailable to already existing humans like donors' organs, medical help etc, which isn't considered eugenics

also, eco fascism, compared to not having a child in a developed country, is completely impractical (i feel pretty cruel saying this, but i need to somehow stood down to their level to argue against it from a practical point of view), because people in developing and poorer countries typically have the least environmental impact...

the childfree and vegan movement need to tread carefully to not fall into eco-fascism or eugenics, in the sense that people should not be physically prevented from having children and we shouldn't kill non-vegans, but they should at the same time be aware of what having a child means for you, for them, animals and the earth

more non-vegan people definitely brings more animal suffering, not sure what to add here

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 years ago

I resent the idea that vegans need to tread lightly to avoid the spectre of eco-fascism a term that seems to be any idea that suggests the desire to procreate has consequences. At present we are witnessing the beginning of apocalyptic climate collapse due to the impact humans have had on the planet. I'd go so far as to say, vastly disprotionately due to industrialization and extraction based imperialism exported to the world from Europe. So a caveat to anti-natalism might be that the idea should disproportionately affect the descendants of colonizers, but the fact is its entirely optional. You don't agree, go ahead birth children into the apocalyptic world where they will invariably suffer terribly, nobody is gonna stop you from creating that harm just as we can't stop people from eating meat. This is about as far from fascism as an ideology can get. There are no laws, only data and ideas on what to do about that data. No forceful, violent imposition of will unlike the relationship of meat eaters on animals. Yet we are constantly told to be careful of becoming eco-fascist by people that have created and engage regularly with a specieist holocaust of unfathomable proportions. At the end of the day it comes to this... Each day a human needs roughly 2000 calories, we need housing, we need clothing, warmth, etc. Those things are not just magically put forth in the world, we clear forests for that lumber and to make room for pasture and roads and infrastructure and quarry metals and lithium and everything else we need to support each additional human. The earth may be able to carry more humans but at what cost to the environment, the animals that live there and the people already here being thrust into climate catastrophe already? Anti-natalism is a completely opt-in idea about trying to mitigate the impact, to me, it is also a method of decolonization when descendants of colonizers opt-in and it literally harm's nobody. What exactly is fascist about veganism or anyi-natalism, or voluntary human extinction?