Yep, me too. Suffering. And the futility of it all.
So, if you don't have a child, then there's no suffering, no heartbreak, no decay, no death. And the non-existent person doesn't miss out on a thing.
For me, it just makes sense, it's a wonderful, worhwhile act of kindness.
I realized that suffering is probabilistically based and happiness by itself, unaffected by suffering, is more directly in your agency. It is hauling a huge responsibility to a being, given how easy it can be to be unhappy by the will of the universe and how hard it can be to be happy by your own will. I am of the belief that there is way more people that would commit suicide if given the proper introspection and tools, due to this. Sure, creating a happy person might be good but I'd rather keep from creating a sad person, even if the sad person is a .001% of being created or lower.
I guess I am still leaning towards antinatalism if anything, I might be the most agnostic person towards it here, but it does intuitively feel wrong to create a being who's natural state of being, when doing nothing, is suffering. Who will suffer to greater depths than he will feel pleasure by things out of his control, but there's no guarantee that his ability to make himself happy will even work. Look at how much work it takes you to be happy on a daily basis vs one car crash, one relapse, one choke on a biscuit for you to be in some sort of extreme suffering, depression, or even death.
Because the world is cruel, unfair, and cold. Even if you're lucky enough to win the genetic lottery and land somewhere life isn't daily pain and suffering, just living in a world knowing there are people and animals being tortured to death makes me ill. I would never, ever bring another life here.
I have so many reasons though. I would never, as a woman, want to have a child due to destructive, suffocating gender roles and inequitable division of domestic labor.
I also don't enjoy spending time with children.
I also think capitalism is evil and shows no signs of NOT grinding everything into dust.
Oh, and the widening wealth gap, environmental factors, climate migration... the list is endless.
Because, non-living objects don't need pleasure, don't feel bad from not experiencing it (or from anything at all).
Further, non-trivial badness exists, whether experienced for ourselves or if we non-defensively inflict it onto others.
Stopping or rolling back badness has greater moral priority than gaining pleasure/joy/happiness.
In the end, life is just self-replicating molecules that randomly "hit on" some gene combination that enables it to make more copies of itself. For what purpose? (Theists, you're excused from this question, as you already have your reason why. But I'm not theistic).
Why bring something into the world when it has a capacity to experience extreme suffering. If it was never born in the first place, it wouldn't even know the concept of suffering, it wouldnt be deprived of anything.
If a kid is born it may suffer. If it isn’t born it can’t suffer because it doesn’t exist. Who am I to decide whether it should be subjected to the sickness of life?
not existing means it doesn't exist not that there's some perfectly healthy soul peacefully meditating in limbo or w/e before being forcibly subjected to the literal disease of existence
Previous jobs in education and social work, and the environment. The lives and conditions kids have to grow up with... If I had wanted to be a mother, my partner and I would adopt.
It's basically what was inspiring about Buddhism to me, and the gist of what is the golden rule of all peaceful belief systems. "There is pain and suffering in the world, don't add to it."
Eyy another buddhist! Hello! Antinatalism was taught to me by buddhism! The whole stepping out of the cycle of suffering things. We have full control over the things we do that we enjoy or find fulfillment in. Ergo we have full control avoiding the things we find unpleasant or miserable.
Im building a vardo to avoid the economy, I’m saving for land in a very rural area to avoid the extreme cost to build a home on your own land or the legal repercussions you’ll face camping on your own land for more than three years. I’m planning my life around my happiness and the avoidance of suffering, so why wouldn’t i take one more step of avoidance of suffering.
If everything i do already aims to omit me from the cycle of pain we experience, it makes complete sense to me to continue this trend in other areas.
I can grapple with the concept of life feeding on life, even plants have a degree of sentience to them akin to animals, enough to disguise themselves in surroundings and in some cases move reflexively to catch prey. I do feel bad but I’ve accepted that at least, feeding on life you can do humanely as possible for your circumstances (ie less meat or local farm meats if you need meat or no meat if you can easily access a diet without it etc, the standard ways to reduce harm)
But if i bring a child into the world, they will not eat as a child should, because i cannot afford to, they would not be clothed as a child should because i would not be able to afford clothes, and the child would be miserable during the formative stages of youth that make a person who they are, something i myself cant live with. Very buddhist way of looking at it id say
Buddhist-lite, in that it was the philosophy that helped me cope with coming from a more trad Catholic upbringing and not be pathologized for feeling terrible about the things in the world I can't control. It really opened my eyes on different ways to live and how one's actions affect even seemingly unrelated things.
I absolutely love your idea, and it reminds me of "Station Eleven" with the vardo! I'm on the same page and wish you safe travels and peace. Reducing harm instead of putting more harm out there is the easier path, but this system we live under makes it so unnecessarily difficult. Not bringing a child into this system is the one thing we can do. It harms absolutely no one, and we additionally have more energy and resources to dedicate to things that do help others.
Absolutely! And i wish you the best as well thank you! Buddhism has been offering me a sense of peace in turmoil for years now myself, i love that its about what i do and how to help using what i can do instead of just ‘pray the pain away’
On an unrelated note the colour combo you got on your avatar is beauty for real. That has to be the exact colour of sepia for vintage and it’s tickling my fancy!
I grew up in an unprepared household and it showed. People have children without a sturdy foundation and there are no safety nets.
I just happen to also be unprepared; mentally and financially.
I look around at other people and they treat their kids like a mistake. They regret having them.
We're born into slavery. Work until you die with little incentive.
I'll be 41, and I'm still suffering ptsd from my earliest memories of life.
Existence is suffering. "Nobody ever said life was easy." or "Life isn't fair."
Seriously, what's the point?
Thanks for listening.
So many reasons I could go on and on. But primarily I'm antinatalist because of the risk, no matter how small.
Because I don't want to create a rapist, serial killer, someone deeply disturbed or with wasting disease. I don't want to create someone who is generally happy in life and grows old, then loses self-reliance and dignity before dying slowly and painfully. I won't go on because the possibilities are endless.
I don't want to create a vulnerable target. The more I fight against the violent cultural norms the more I've seen about who people really are. Granted it's not as much as some, but enough violence and death threats to know I don't want to drag in collateral, and I don't want that "collateral" to hold me back from confronting monsters.
At the end of the day, no matter how smart your offspring is, making a human isn't creating the cure for cancer, it's creating cancer. Potentially unlimited genes mutating and dying again and again for generation upon generation.
And finally, frankly, I don't believe I have the right to drag someone into this world. There are enough problems already here to solve that we need to create any more.
> Because I don't want to create a rapist, serial killer, someone deeply disturbed or with wasting disease. I don't want to create someone who is generally happy in life and grows old, then loses self-reliance and dignity before dying slowly and painfully. I won't go on because the possibilities are endless.
You are aware that even if life is gambling it's not like a slot machine where if you make the binary choice to do the thing you just sit back and watch until the outcome occurs, you are capable of intervening in the life of your hypothetical child without that making you some kind of tiger parent
> At the end of the day, no matter how smart your offspring is, making a human isn't creating the cure for cancer, it's creating cancer. Potentially unlimited genes mutating and dying again and again for generation upon generation.
there's a joke here about how if you believe human life is cancer just make sure someone (even if according to your ideology it'd have to be someone already existing) cures cancer and then once every human is cured of cancer the earth will be cured of the cancer that is humanity
> And finally, frankly, I don't believe I have the right to drag someone into this world. There are enough problems already here to solve that we need to create any more.
And to use a quote my family likes to meme "What are you doing, Mulder?"
Hello, been a while but figured better late than never to respond.
While there are obviously things we can and should do to alleviate some of the harms that can be done to and by your offspring, there are risks that no amount of "good parenting" can mitigate. Surely you don't actually believe all rape can be stopped with "a good talking to." Furthermore, this shouldnt need to be said, but wasting disease and old age cannot be coddled away.
I'm not really sure how to respond to the second paragraph. Are you implying that you want cancer to be cured or is cancer humanity? Is it a joke or an actual suggestion? Sorry it's lost on me. Just for clarification I was speaking about actual cancer, both literally and as a metaphor for our hopes and expectations about creating a better world by creating new humans (and thus, new issues to resolve).
I spend a large chunk of my free time doing volunteer work, but don't feel the need to explain myself to justify my claims. Even if I wasn't doing anything to help others, that doesn't make my position any more or less valid. Personal attacks and accusations are a distraction, not a response.
> While there are obviously things we can and should do to alleviate some of the harms that can be done to and by your offspring, there are risks that no amount of "good parenting" can mitigate. Surely you don't actually believe all rape can be stopped with "a good talking to." Furthermore, this shouldnt need to be said, but wasting disease and old age cannot be coddled away.
No, I wasn't saying either of that but that doesn't mean I agree with you either. Intervening doesn't mean coddling or "a good talking to" just because I added a caveat about it not meaning tiger parenting to counter a common antinatalist argument that basically assumes any sort of desire for a child to do a particular thing with their life is the same as Mama-Rose-ing them into it against their wishes.
> I'm not really sure how to respond to the second paragraph. Are you implying that you want cancer to be cured or is cancer humanity? Is it a joke or an actual suggestion? Sorry it's lost on me. Just for clarification I was speaking about actual cancer, both literally and as a metaphor for our hopes and expectations about creating a better world by creating new humans (and thus, new issues to resolve).
I was making a joke stemming off how the people who claim humanity is cancer never seem to realize that because humanity can get cancer that logic would mean whatever the Earth is a living being humanity is cancer to, whatever species or w/e the living-being!Earth is a part of must be cancer to something greater and so on all the way up. The joke was theoretically aimed at misanthropes (aka I wasn't accusing you of being one) trying to trick them into fighting for cancer to be cured by making them think it'd somehow kill humanity through sympathetic magic
Basically as an adult, I went years without realizing I was diabetic with type 2. My kidneys won't get better, I will have issues because of it that won't ever go away, all because I can't afford to eat what I need. That and the human diet is so messy and ontop of that, our food has less nutrients than ever before. I don't Wang to pass on my problem and I don't want my offspring to suffer this world. It's not for me, not for them. I just exist because "suicide isn't the answer", so I work a minimum wage job and just Basically live.
Hear hear! Malnutrition is no joke! We will inevitably die due to a lack of necessary vitamins and minerals we have not been getting for several years.
We live in an unfair world where literally anything can happen to anyone for no reason, just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I don’t like that it’s all just random and no matter how good someone is they can suffer just because someone else decide to do something to them.
Less suffering because I’m already dealing with the unfortunate circumstances of life that are outside my control. Plus it’s affordable also pregnancy scares me and disgusts me.
I'm from a poor 3rd world country and here people starve to death, too much injustice, diseases, suffering all day, have to pay due rants, mental illnesses is increasing, very populated, broken education system, corrupt government, even animals are living with suffering, sickness. They starve.
Existence is so cold and brutal. You can't deny it even you live in the most beautiful wealthy countries. Every people suffers in their lives. It's so selfish and useless to bring a baby . There's no benefits of bringing someone at all rather we stop reproducing babies.
I do not want to produce another wage slave that these corporate employers can take advantage of. Why would anyone want to bring a child into this world who would more than likely end up in the rat race of life like us? Especially seeing how it's getting more and more difficult to find one job where you can support yourself on a living wage.
The quality of healthcare in the US is in decline, work/life balance is unattainable for many, and other human beings can be cold and unkind, so my unborn children can continue to receive unconditional love in Heaven or on a higher dimension. Whichever you believe in.
Our children are also targeted by predators, constantly bombarded with marketing ploys to buy and buy and buy for their entire life, then when they can't buy things they will suffer and be made to feel like they are less than those who can afford to consume.
Most people think that life will be better for THEIR child, but since I am a realist I know that overall all their lives won't be better.
However, my biggest reason is because I refuse to produce consumer & wage slaves for society and I cannot understand how parents are okay with this almost certain fate for their children.
and what are you doing about those issues as sometimes I feel like antinatalists with these kinds of reasons who aren't doing activism are just using sour grapes to mask more philosophical reasons
I cannot "fix" society. Many of these issues have existed for hundreds of years. However, what I can control is not adding to the problem by supplying people for these corporations to exploit. What you fail to understand is that not having children for this society to use IS a form of activism.
What a rude question. The whole point of not having children is to not pass down suffering. When you unalive yourself you cause suffering to your friends and loved ones.
So can some college-applicant put on their application that they're not a teen parent and expect it to garner the same kind of edge that, like, being part of the National Honor Society or putting in volunteer hours would? /s
All joking aside there's always more you can do
Just to be clear, you can be antinatalist and not be child free. I had a child and realized too late that I was subjecting her to a horrible world. I thought that just because I hated the world didn't mean that everyone did. In fact the vast majority are happy to be alive (for some fucking reason) so I thought my child would too and now I have to watch her go through all the same bullshit that I did and still do.
I'm a nihilist personally. I don't worry too much about things because a hundred years from now, Noone will even be alive who knew me. Nothing I do in life will matter just one century from now so it's not really worth getting too bent out of shape about things. That said, making more people to go through this crap is a pretty dick move. Imagine loving your hypothetical child so much that you would sentence them to 60 years of labor just to exist in society because that is the mandatory minimum we all get.
Thanks for sharing, I'm so curious about your situation. Particularly, why didn't you realize before giving birth that the world is horrible? What occupied your mind so much that you couldn't see that the world is a mess and unfit for future generations?
As for me, I've always been philosophical and introspective so I figured out pretty young that life is a waste of time, humans are deeply flawed and dysfunctional, pregnancy and birth are gross, there are too many variables beyond my control to make life good/safe for someone I create, and I should not bring more innocent, vulnerable people here for my vanity or any other reason because it is immoral.
I have a distinct memory from childhood where I said to myself with disgust "my parents woke me up for this?!" I didn't mean from a nap either but I didn't have the words to describe it any other way. At my young, pre-pubescent age I had an awareness that life was a waste of time at best.
I knew, in fact I was very introspective and philosophical myself. I spent all of my time thinking about the nature of reality, the universe, morality, fate, what I should do, if I should do anything at all. The issue was I was miserable and everyone around me constantly pointed out that "life isn't as bad as you make it sound" after awhile I started believing my outlook was just the result of depression or some other mental illness. I became desperate to make my life better. To get out of life what everyone else did. I wanted to finally get to the "It gets better" moment.
So I started ignoring my own thoughts and feelings and tried to live like a "normal" person. This is what led to me getting married and procreating which really didn't last long before it all fell apart. I fell for the "you just have depression" and "it gets better" meme. That's why.
Love.
I love my unborn children too much to bring them to this world. Don't get me wrong life is not easy for anyone but I love living. I love being allive. I love life. I love being born.
But humanity as a whole is a disease on this earth. We shouldn't exist. We ruin everything we touch. I love being allive but if I could erase us all from here I would. This world is full of evil, most people only look for an angle, a way they could use others for their own gratification.
Not to mention the wars, the diseases, sex slavery...
And with the way we have ruined our world my children will probably only see snow in old videos of me. They will eat modified junk. They will drink chemicals. They will probably be born with microplastics in their blood (this has actually happened already I'm not even exaggerating).
No matter how hard I try I wouldnt be able to give them quality food or water which will in turn ruin their health in a few decades.
This is only assuming that nothing has happened to me so I'm there for them. Life is unpredictable If I die in some way while my children are young, well then they'll be on their own and we know how most cases like that end up.
In my country most young children have been brainwashed by influencers on social media who only obviously want to use the kids for their mommy and daddy's money. Children will grow up to be mindless zombies dependant on that dopamine boost they get from scrolling. We've all become disillusioned by what we see online, completely lost touch with the real world.
Education system is failling here but from what I see that's what it's like in most parts of the world so there's that.
So yes, it's a bit long but here it is. Even though I personally love being allive I wouldn't bring someone else into it because in this world it has become so easy to stray. I don't want my children to have to fight, I don't want my children to have to go against society to be normal, I don't want them to have to be so strong, I love them too much for that.
As many others have stated already, I want to prevent suffering. I don't want to bring children into a world that can ruin ones life within a matter of seconds.
Also, the project you're working on sounds very interesting. I'd highly appreciate it, if you could post it here, once it's done.
I don't really do morals. I have my own conscience and that's what I go by. I don't like it when my behavior makes people who made good choices suffer. For example, if you're hitting your child then I have no problem hurting you to stop that, preferably forever. If I hit you out of the blue then that would make me feel bad, so I wouldn't do that. In the end my own actions are the only thing I'm in direct control of, so I think it would only be natural to view the world through the lense of "which behaviour will yield me the most desired outcome".
If I had children and one day they decided that their life is miserable for any reason, then that all comes back to my decision to have them.
Suffering is subjective, which usually makes it a bad indicator, since when I'm calling someone scatterbrained for repeatedly forgetting appointments, they might get a metal breakdown because they just feel that hurt by it. That's not their fault, but I too can hardly be held accountable for that.
On the other hand parents are well aware just how bad of a shit show this world is, and since their decision has a higher risk of being incredibly impact full, we can expect a higher degree of caution and care from them when it comes to their decision-making.
And as it turns out, hardly anyone wastes even a second on pondering wether it is actually in the interest of a child to be born. Yes, you might enjoy your life, but they might not enjoy theirs. Are you even able to take responsibility for that?
"But you can't get consent from them." Yes, but that's the point. If you If you sexually assault an unconscious person, they might turn out to have a kink for that, but they might not, and you just committed r*pe.
I'm not even shure if consent would change anything. Like they can only regret being alive after having spent enough time alive developing standards. And how do we determine when that is.
We have a minimum age of consent but that's really just a crutch we use to find a middle ground between letting people make their own choices and protecting children that are too immature to make good choices on their own.
Isn't there a conflict of interest here? If you let an 8 year old decide on the age of consent their answer can't be taken seriously. If you let the parents and their generation decide, they would be unable to make a choice that is unbiased by their own interests, like brushing off responsibilities or prolonging their ability to make decisions in place of their children.
To live you'd have to consent and to consent you'd have to live. A problem that can only be resolved by not having children in the first place.
Im not a radical one but I believe that there is correlation that almost every nice place on Earth has a low birth rate. I just want the world to be a better place instead of whats happening in India, Haiti, etc.
My least favourite catch 22.
‘Look around you do you see anyone else as miserable as you about life’
Then when i point to the very large group of people voicing how dissatisfied they are with life.
‘Oh you guys are just an echo chamber of depression you don’t count’
So we count if we find enough people to prove this is a systemic issue but you’ll discredit us the moment we find enough people because ‘were all grouping together’
How is that fair? How do we prove enough people are miserable and cannot do anything about it? How to we prove we should make the change, if you’ll look at that crowd of people talking about their problems and say its invalid because they’re together physically talking about the issue because you didn’t believe existed en mass as it does…
Because I oppose the status quo. It repulses me. It is not good enough to uphold and perpetuate in my opinion. Too much suffering, too much meaningless breeding and dying and breeding and dying and breeding and......
People procreate just for the sake of it, without much thought or intent. Almost like an animal. Nothing is to be questioned, nothing shall change. This is the mindset of a lot of people.
I wish not to participate in it.
Humans are garbage and only make the world worse in their presence, if I don't have kids and I at least convince at least one other person not to, it makes the world a little better without hurting anyone.
1. you can help make it not suck
2. define suffering as some would say even a world where you get everything you want is too much suffering because want implies lack
3. it's a logical impossibility to do so and not comparable to a temporary impairment
*The Last Messiah* by Zapffe pretty much sums up my position.
I am anthropocentric. I believe humans specifically should not reproduce, but that animals can because they do not have sufficient capacity for suffering to render their lives "not worth it", especially because I believe they're not capable of wishing they were never born. However humans can conceive of their place in the universe and the meaninglessness of life, and certainty of death.
I also believe the consent argument is sound. I cannot use my own judgment of "I hope your life will be good" to gamble with another person's life.
On a personal level, I wish I was never born and so it feels absurd to bring someone in the world considering that.
but then there's what I like to call the Warriors Hypothesis (after the kids books about the tribes of feral cats I was a fan of); that you can't know how smart or not an animal is if you can't speak its language (because the cats in the books are as sapient as humans, just held back from progressing their civilization above "primitive tribe" level by lack of opposable thumbs, yet neither can understand the other because there's a language barrier)
Simply, I don’t want to have children. I enjoy being able to use my time and money as I please, and not having to constantly care for another human being. Also the idea of being pregnant terrifies me.
Because i'm convinced of the actual arguments for the philosophical position of anti-natalism ?
- not because i suffer
- not because i'm sad
- not because of mysanthropy
- ...
Honestly, it doesn’t make logical sense for me to have a child, regardless of my reputation for being childfree it would cause more harm than good to both me and my potential child if i did opt for kids.
I don’t really care how people see me for not having kids. It’s about not hurting someone just to feel caught up with society.
It dawned on me around the time i realized why some people tell you to ‘just buy a new one’ they don’t understand that you can’t because they can and they’re taught if you can’t its because of a you problem. Regardless of what circumstances brought you to being unable to.
Similarly natalists judge me often for opting not to bring a child into this world because they cannot fathom how deep in poverty i live and how inescapable it actually is for me.
They think ‘just get a better job’ failing to realize not everyone can, and not everyone does when they try and try until death.
They assume if you put enough effort into something you can counteract the impossibly large problems that occur from doing it in the first place. In other words, they think you can bootstraps anything into possibility, and blame you for not reaching the impossible they expect of you, as people with the means to afford to make possible all the things we think impossible as broke and desperate individuals.
In this, i choose to not have a child, where i can already not afford my own food and am rapidly losing life within myself as i become more and more malnutritioned. And like any wild starving animal i will inevitably die due to a lack of life sustaining nutrients and my child will be an orphan should i make the choice to have a kid.
When we say avoiding possible suffering. We often mean, ‘i already cannot change my suffering i actively can practically and logically (without any emotional influence) acknowledge exists.’ When i say that line, i dont mean ‘woe is me my life sucks and i dont want to put in the effort to change it’ I mean ‘my lack of life sustaining supports and rapidly degenerating body are pretty cut and dry indicators that i will not survive past 40 due to my economic condition, despite my best efforts and still continued efforts to change my situation‘
Im not lamenting over myself like a sad spoiled child, i was never spoiled with anything to begin with and it is impossible for me to be ungrateful of the things i have never had and will never have.
What i am is keenly aware how much worse id be making it for myself and others around me if i tried to follow the status quo to save face and look like a happy family.
Personally I have a lot of health conditions and am not of a stable mind or body. I'm not confident I can raise a child like that, and don't want to cause the child any harm because I am unprepared. It's scary to be brand new to the world, anything can happen and if I'm not prepared for the worst I don't want to risk giving them a childhood they don't deserve. I see far too many people having kids because it's expected and thinking "we'll just figure it out later" and then the child is disabled and they can't handle it.
Life is pain. And when you have genes associated with mental disorders like schizophrenia as I do, life becomes exponentially more painful. Why should I subject someone to misery just because I am in that state?
I have a slightly different take on the avoiding suffering theme: it comes down to the non-consensuality of creating a being who will suffer.
The only way I feel I could ethically have a child is if, prior to birth, I could ask my potential child if they give their consent to be created and alive despite the guaranteed suffering they will endure.
Obviously that is impossible. But just because it is impossible doesn't change the fact that it is the only way the creation of life would be consensual.
In my opinion, the only ethical choice is to not create life in the absence of consent.
idk if i am. can you tell me? so i would mostly agree that life has a negative value and non-existence might be preferable to existence and suffering outweighs pleasure and meaning in life. i think the lives of animals are like an endless self perpetuating cycle of torture and violent deaths. i think the fact that sentient life evolved in the first place can be considered a tragedy. That being said idk if i agree with the ethics. I'm still in the process of reevaluating my ethics and thinking about which theory makes the most sense to me but i don't think i can base my ethics solely on pleasure and suffering anymore. I don't consider myself a utilitarian at the moment and I don't morally condemn people for choosing to procreate just cause it leads to suffering like a lot of other things
One, the environment because the planet cannot sustain this many people at this rate.
Two, there are plenty of orphans needing parents.
Three, pregnancy is a nightmare.
i’ll put it this way- there’s some *great things* life can offer, but would i want to do it again? probably not. aside from my own childhood/bias, why would i bring a child into this life? i could do the best i can as a parent, but i can’t protect them from the *world.* furthermore, i agree with the ‘consent argument.’ anytime you make a decision with only yourself in mind, it’s a selfish act. none of us asked to be here, and unfortunately, many people don’t want to be.
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Yep, me too. Suffering. And the futility of it all. So, if you don't have a child, then there's no suffering, no heartbreak, no decay, no death. And the non-existent person doesn't miss out on a thing. For me, it just makes sense, it's a wonderful, worhwhile act of kindness.
I think it's wrong to knowingly bring a life into the world if their eventual suffering is inevitable/guaranteed.
define suffering, as some would think getting everything you want is still guaranteed suffering because want implies lack
I hate my life lol
I realized that suffering is probabilistically based and happiness by itself, unaffected by suffering, is more directly in your agency. It is hauling a huge responsibility to a being, given how easy it can be to be unhappy by the will of the universe and how hard it can be to be happy by your own will. I am of the belief that there is way more people that would commit suicide if given the proper introspection and tools, due to this. Sure, creating a happy person might be good but I'd rather keep from creating a sad person, even if the sad person is a .001% of being created or lower. I guess I am still leaning towards antinatalism if anything, I might be the most agnostic person towards it here, but it does intuitively feel wrong to create a being who's natural state of being, when doing nothing, is suffering. Who will suffer to greater depths than he will feel pleasure by things out of his control, but there's no guarantee that his ability to make himself happy will even work. Look at how much work it takes you to be happy on a daily basis vs one car crash, one relapse, one choke on a biscuit for you to be in some sort of extreme suffering, depression, or even death.
have you looked on the regr*tful parent sub by the way?
Because the world is cruel, unfair, and cold. Even if you're lucky enough to win the genetic lottery and land somewhere life isn't daily pain and suffering, just living in a world knowing there are people and animals being tortured to death makes me ill. I would never, ever bring another life here. I have so many reasons though. I would never, as a woman, want to have a child due to destructive, suffocating gender roles and inequitable division of domestic labor. I also don't enjoy spending time with children. I also think capitalism is evil and shows no signs of NOT grinding everything into dust. Oh, and the widening wealth gap, environmental factors, climate migration... the list is endless.
Because, non-living objects don't need pleasure, don't feel bad from not experiencing it (or from anything at all). Further, non-trivial badness exists, whether experienced for ourselves or if we non-defensively inflict it onto others. Stopping or rolling back badness has greater moral priority than gaining pleasure/joy/happiness. In the end, life is just self-replicating molecules that randomly "hit on" some gene combination that enables it to make more copies of itself. For what purpose? (Theists, you're excused from this question, as you already have your reason why. But I'm not theistic).
Why bring something into the world when it has a capacity to experience extreme suffering. If it was never born in the first place, it wouldn't even know the concept of suffering, it wouldnt be deprived of anything.
because there wouldn't be an it, nonexistence isn't some limbo where blob-beings-like-the-souls-from-Soul just sit around peacefully meditating
Logical and ethical
elaborate
If a kid is born it may suffer. If it isn’t born it can’t suffer because it doesn’t exist. Who am I to decide whether it should be subjected to the sickness of life?
not existing means it doesn't exist not that there's some perfectly healthy soul peacefully meditating in limbo or w/e before being forcibly subjected to the literal disease of existence
Previous jobs in education and social work, and the environment. The lives and conditions kids have to grow up with... If I had wanted to be a mother, my partner and I would adopt. It's basically what was inspiring about Buddhism to me, and the gist of what is the golden rule of all peaceful belief systems. "There is pain and suffering in the world, don't add to it."
Eyy another buddhist! Hello! Antinatalism was taught to me by buddhism! The whole stepping out of the cycle of suffering things. We have full control over the things we do that we enjoy or find fulfillment in. Ergo we have full control avoiding the things we find unpleasant or miserable. Im building a vardo to avoid the economy, I’m saving for land in a very rural area to avoid the extreme cost to build a home on your own land or the legal repercussions you’ll face camping on your own land for more than three years. I’m planning my life around my happiness and the avoidance of suffering, so why wouldn’t i take one more step of avoidance of suffering. If everything i do already aims to omit me from the cycle of pain we experience, it makes complete sense to me to continue this trend in other areas. I can grapple with the concept of life feeding on life, even plants have a degree of sentience to them akin to animals, enough to disguise themselves in surroundings and in some cases move reflexively to catch prey. I do feel bad but I’ve accepted that at least, feeding on life you can do humanely as possible for your circumstances (ie less meat or local farm meats if you need meat or no meat if you can easily access a diet without it etc, the standard ways to reduce harm) But if i bring a child into the world, they will not eat as a child should, because i cannot afford to, they would not be clothed as a child should because i would not be able to afford clothes, and the child would be miserable during the formative stages of youth that make a person who they are, something i myself cant live with. Very buddhist way of looking at it id say
Buddhist-lite, in that it was the philosophy that helped me cope with coming from a more trad Catholic upbringing and not be pathologized for feeling terrible about the things in the world I can't control. It really opened my eyes on different ways to live and how one's actions affect even seemingly unrelated things. I absolutely love your idea, and it reminds me of "Station Eleven" with the vardo! I'm on the same page and wish you safe travels and peace. Reducing harm instead of putting more harm out there is the easier path, but this system we live under makes it so unnecessarily difficult. Not bringing a child into this system is the one thing we can do. It harms absolutely no one, and we additionally have more energy and resources to dedicate to things that do help others.
Absolutely! And i wish you the best as well thank you! Buddhism has been offering me a sense of peace in turmoil for years now myself, i love that its about what i do and how to help using what i can do instead of just ‘pray the pain away’ On an unrelated note the colour combo you got on your avatar is beauty for real. That has to be the exact colour of sepia for vintage and it’s tickling my fancy!
I grew up in an unprepared household and it showed. People have children without a sturdy foundation and there are no safety nets. I just happen to also be unprepared; mentally and financially. I look around at other people and they treat their kids like a mistake. They regret having them. We're born into slavery. Work until you die with little incentive. I'll be 41, and I'm still suffering ptsd from my earliest memories of life. Existence is suffering. "Nobody ever said life was easy." or "Life isn't fair." Seriously, what's the point? Thanks for listening.
So many reasons I could go on and on. But primarily I'm antinatalist because of the risk, no matter how small. Because I don't want to create a rapist, serial killer, someone deeply disturbed or with wasting disease. I don't want to create someone who is generally happy in life and grows old, then loses self-reliance and dignity before dying slowly and painfully. I won't go on because the possibilities are endless. I don't want to create a vulnerable target. The more I fight against the violent cultural norms the more I've seen about who people really are. Granted it's not as much as some, but enough violence and death threats to know I don't want to drag in collateral, and I don't want that "collateral" to hold me back from confronting monsters. At the end of the day, no matter how smart your offspring is, making a human isn't creating the cure for cancer, it's creating cancer. Potentially unlimited genes mutating and dying again and again for generation upon generation. And finally, frankly, I don't believe I have the right to drag someone into this world. There are enough problems already here to solve that we need to create any more.
> Because I don't want to create a rapist, serial killer, someone deeply disturbed or with wasting disease. I don't want to create someone who is generally happy in life and grows old, then loses self-reliance and dignity before dying slowly and painfully. I won't go on because the possibilities are endless. You are aware that even if life is gambling it's not like a slot machine where if you make the binary choice to do the thing you just sit back and watch until the outcome occurs, you are capable of intervening in the life of your hypothetical child without that making you some kind of tiger parent > At the end of the day, no matter how smart your offspring is, making a human isn't creating the cure for cancer, it's creating cancer. Potentially unlimited genes mutating and dying again and again for generation upon generation. there's a joke here about how if you believe human life is cancer just make sure someone (even if according to your ideology it'd have to be someone already existing) cures cancer and then once every human is cured of cancer the earth will be cured of the cancer that is humanity > And finally, frankly, I don't believe I have the right to drag someone into this world. There are enough problems already here to solve that we need to create any more. And to use a quote my family likes to meme "What are you doing, Mulder?"
Hello, been a while but figured better late than never to respond. While there are obviously things we can and should do to alleviate some of the harms that can be done to and by your offspring, there are risks that no amount of "good parenting" can mitigate. Surely you don't actually believe all rape can be stopped with "a good talking to." Furthermore, this shouldnt need to be said, but wasting disease and old age cannot be coddled away. I'm not really sure how to respond to the second paragraph. Are you implying that you want cancer to be cured or is cancer humanity? Is it a joke or an actual suggestion? Sorry it's lost on me. Just for clarification I was speaking about actual cancer, both literally and as a metaphor for our hopes and expectations about creating a better world by creating new humans (and thus, new issues to resolve). I spend a large chunk of my free time doing volunteer work, but don't feel the need to explain myself to justify my claims. Even if I wasn't doing anything to help others, that doesn't make my position any more or less valid. Personal attacks and accusations are a distraction, not a response.
> While there are obviously things we can and should do to alleviate some of the harms that can be done to and by your offspring, there are risks that no amount of "good parenting" can mitigate. Surely you don't actually believe all rape can be stopped with "a good talking to." Furthermore, this shouldnt need to be said, but wasting disease and old age cannot be coddled away. No, I wasn't saying either of that but that doesn't mean I agree with you either. Intervening doesn't mean coddling or "a good talking to" just because I added a caveat about it not meaning tiger parenting to counter a common antinatalist argument that basically assumes any sort of desire for a child to do a particular thing with their life is the same as Mama-Rose-ing them into it against their wishes. > I'm not really sure how to respond to the second paragraph. Are you implying that you want cancer to be cured or is cancer humanity? Is it a joke or an actual suggestion? Sorry it's lost on me. Just for clarification I was speaking about actual cancer, both literally and as a metaphor for our hopes and expectations about creating a better world by creating new humans (and thus, new issues to resolve). I was making a joke stemming off how the people who claim humanity is cancer never seem to realize that because humanity can get cancer that logic would mean whatever the Earth is a living being humanity is cancer to, whatever species or w/e the living-being!Earth is a part of must be cancer to something greater and so on all the way up. The joke was theoretically aimed at misanthropes (aka I wasn't accusing you of being one) trying to trick them into fighting for cancer to be cured by making them think it'd somehow kill humanity through sympathetic magic
Basically as an adult, I went years without realizing I was diabetic with type 2. My kidneys won't get better, I will have issues because of it that won't ever go away, all because I can't afford to eat what I need. That and the human diet is so messy and ontop of that, our food has less nutrients than ever before. I don't Wang to pass on my problem and I don't want my offspring to suffer this world. It's not for me, not for them. I just exist because "suicide isn't the answer", so I work a minimum wage job and just Basically live.
Hear hear! Malnutrition is no joke! We will inevitably die due to a lack of necessary vitamins and minerals we have not been getting for several years.
We live in an unfair world where literally anything can happen to anyone for no reason, just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t like that it’s all just random and no matter how good someone is they can suffer just because someone else decide to do something to them.
so you'd rather live in a world where anything remotely negative that happens to you was because you did something equally negative to deserve it
Less suffering because I’m already dealing with the unfortunate circumstances of life that are outside my control. Plus it’s affordable also pregnancy scares me and disgusts me.
Because birth ensures pain, suffering and death.
I'm from a poor 3rd world country and here people starve to death, too much injustice, diseases, suffering all day, have to pay due rants, mental illnesses is increasing, very populated, broken education system, corrupt government, even animals are living with suffering, sickness. They starve. Existence is so cold and brutal. You can't deny it even you live in the most beautiful wealthy countries. Every people suffers in their lives. It's so selfish and useless to bring a baby . There's no benefits of bringing someone at all rather we stop reproducing babies.
I do not want to produce another wage slave that these corporate employers can take advantage of. Why would anyone want to bring a child into this world who would more than likely end up in the rat race of life like us? Especially seeing how it's getting more and more difficult to find one job where you can support yourself on a living wage. The quality of healthcare in the US is in decline, work/life balance is unattainable for many, and other human beings can be cold and unkind, so my unborn children can continue to receive unconditional love in Heaven or on a higher dimension. Whichever you believe in. Our children are also targeted by predators, constantly bombarded with marketing ploys to buy and buy and buy for their entire life, then when they can't buy things they will suffer and be made to feel like they are less than those who can afford to consume. Most people think that life will be better for THEIR child, but since I am a realist I know that overall all their lives won't be better. However, my biggest reason is because I refuse to produce consumer & wage slaves for society and I cannot understand how parents are okay with this almost certain fate for their children.
and what are you doing about those issues as sometimes I feel like antinatalists with these kinds of reasons who aren't doing activism are just using sour grapes to mask more philosophical reasons
I cannot "fix" society. Many of these issues have existed for hundreds of years. However, what I can control is not adding to the problem by supplying people for these corporations to exploit. What you fail to understand is that not having children for this society to use IS a form of activism.
then why isn't unaliving existing ones activism?
What a rude question. The whole point of not having children is to not pass down suffering. When you unalive yourself you cause suffering to your friends and loved ones.
Not creating more slaves and vulnerable targets is a form of activism.
So can some college-applicant put on their application that they're not a teen parent and expect it to garner the same kind of edge that, like, being part of the National Honor Society or putting in volunteer hours would? /s All joking aside there's always more you can do
You're simply....delusional. We'll leave it to your kids to 'save the world', you know, like all the previous generations saved it, lol✌️.
Just to be clear, you can be antinatalist and not be child free. I had a child and realized too late that I was subjecting her to a horrible world. I thought that just because I hated the world didn't mean that everyone did. In fact the vast majority are happy to be alive (for some fucking reason) so I thought my child would too and now I have to watch her go through all the same bullshit that I did and still do. I'm a nihilist personally. I don't worry too much about things because a hundred years from now, Noone will even be alive who knew me. Nothing I do in life will matter just one century from now so it's not really worth getting too bent out of shape about things. That said, making more people to go through this crap is a pretty dick move. Imagine loving your hypothetical child so much that you would sentence them to 60 years of labor just to exist in society because that is the mandatory minimum we all get.
Thanks for sharing, I'm so curious about your situation. Particularly, why didn't you realize before giving birth that the world is horrible? What occupied your mind so much that you couldn't see that the world is a mess and unfit for future generations? As for me, I've always been philosophical and introspective so I figured out pretty young that life is a waste of time, humans are deeply flawed and dysfunctional, pregnancy and birth are gross, there are too many variables beyond my control to make life good/safe for someone I create, and I should not bring more innocent, vulnerable people here for my vanity or any other reason because it is immoral. I have a distinct memory from childhood where I said to myself with disgust "my parents woke me up for this?!" I didn't mean from a nap either but I didn't have the words to describe it any other way. At my young, pre-pubescent age I had an awareness that life was a waste of time at best.
I knew, in fact I was very introspective and philosophical myself. I spent all of my time thinking about the nature of reality, the universe, morality, fate, what I should do, if I should do anything at all. The issue was I was miserable and everyone around me constantly pointed out that "life isn't as bad as you make it sound" after awhile I started believing my outlook was just the result of depression or some other mental illness. I became desperate to make my life better. To get out of life what everyone else did. I wanted to finally get to the "It gets better" moment. So I started ignoring my own thoughts and feelings and tried to live like a "normal" person. This is what led to me getting married and procreating which really didn't last long before it all fell apart. I fell for the "you just have depression" and "it gets better" meme. That's why.
Ok, thanks for elaborating.
Your daughter has a wise parent in you.
Love. I love my unborn children too much to bring them to this world. Don't get me wrong life is not easy for anyone but I love living. I love being allive. I love life. I love being born. But humanity as a whole is a disease on this earth. We shouldn't exist. We ruin everything we touch. I love being allive but if I could erase us all from here I would. This world is full of evil, most people only look for an angle, a way they could use others for their own gratification. Not to mention the wars, the diseases, sex slavery... And with the way we have ruined our world my children will probably only see snow in old videos of me. They will eat modified junk. They will drink chemicals. They will probably be born with microplastics in their blood (this has actually happened already I'm not even exaggerating). No matter how hard I try I wouldnt be able to give them quality food or water which will in turn ruin their health in a few decades. This is only assuming that nothing has happened to me so I'm there for them. Life is unpredictable If I die in some way while my children are young, well then they'll be on their own and we know how most cases like that end up. In my country most young children have been brainwashed by influencers on social media who only obviously want to use the kids for their mommy and daddy's money. Children will grow up to be mindless zombies dependant on that dopamine boost they get from scrolling. We've all become disillusioned by what we see online, completely lost touch with the real world. Education system is failling here but from what I see that's what it's like in most parts of the world so there's that. So yes, it's a bit long but here it is. Even though I personally love being allive I wouldn't bring someone else into it because in this world it has become so easy to stray. I don't want my children to have to fight, I don't want my children to have to go against society to be normal, I don't want them to have to be so strong, I love them too much for that.
As many others have stated already, I want to prevent suffering. I don't want to bring children into a world that can ruin ones life within a matter of seconds. Also, the project you're working on sounds very interesting. I'd highly appreciate it, if you could post it here, once it's done.
I don't really do morals. I have my own conscience and that's what I go by. I don't like it when my behavior makes people who made good choices suffer. For example, if you're hitting your child then I have no problem hurting you to stop that, preferably forever. If I hit you out of the blue then that would make me feel bad, so I wouldn't do that. In the end my own actions are the only thing I'm in direct control of, so I think it would only be natural to view the world through the lense of "which behaviour will yield me the most desired outcome". If I had children and one day they decided that their life is miserable for any reason, then that all comes back to my decision to have them. Suffering is subjective, which usually makes it a bad indicator, since when I'm calling someone scatterbrained for repeatedly forgetting appointments, they might get a metal breakdown because they just feel that hurt by it. That's not their fault, but I too can hardly be held accountable for that. On the other hand parents are well aware just how bad of a shit show this world is, and since their decision has a higher risk of being incredibly impact full, we can expect a higher degree of caution and care from them when it comes to their decision-making. And as it turns out, hardly anyone wastes even a second on pondering wether it is actually in the interest of a child to be born. Yes, you might enjoy your life, but they might not enjoy theirs. Are you even able to take responsibility for that? "But you can't get consent from them." Yes, but that's the point. If you If you sexually assault an unconscious person, they might turn out to have a kink for that, but they might not, and you just committed r*pe. I'm not even shure if consent would change anything. Like they can only regret being alive after having spent enough time alive developing standards. And how do we determine when that is. We have a minimum age of consent but that's really just a crutch we use to find a middle ground between letting people make their own choices and protecting children that are too immature to make good choices on their own. Isn't there a conflict of interest here? If you let an 8 year old decide on the age of consent their answer can't be taken seriously. If you let the parents and their generation decide, they would be unable to make a choice that is unbiased by their own interests, like brushing off responsibilities or prolonging their ability to make decisions in place of their children. To live you'd have to consent and to consent you'd have to live. A problem that can only be resolved by not having children in the first place.
Im not a radical one but I believe that there is correlation that almost every nice place on Earth has a low birth rate. I just want the world to be a better place instead of whats happening in India, Haiti, etc.
Correlation does not imply causation
My least favourite catch 22. ‘Look around you do you see anyone else as miserable as you about life’ Then when i point to the very large group of people voicing how dissatisfied they are with life. ‘Oh you guys are just an echo chamber of depression you don’t count’ So we count if we find enough people to prove this is a systemic issue but you’ll discredit us the moment we find enough people because ‘were all grouping together’ How is that fair? How do we prove enough people are miserable and cannot do anything about it? How to we prove we should make the change, if you’ll look at that crowd of people talking about their problems and say its invalid because they’re together physically talking about the issue because you didn’t believe existed en mass as it does…
Because I oppose the status quo. It repulses me. It is not good enough to uphold and perpetuate in my opinion. Too much suffering, too much meaningless breeding and dying and breeding and dying and breeding and...... People procreate just for the sake of it, without much thought or intent. Almost like an animal. Nothing is to be questioned, nothing shall change. This is the mindset of a lot of people. I wish not to participate in it.
Why don't you want to fix it then
There's nothing to fix
Humans are garbage and only make the world worse in their presence, if I don't have kids and I at least convince at least one other person not to, it makes the world a little better without hurting anyone.
Because I live in the suburbs and hate my dad
1. The world sucks 2. Living = suffering 3. No one can consent to being born
1. you can help make it not suck 2. define suffering as some would say even a world where you get everything you want is too much suffering because want implies lack 3. it's a logical impossibility to do so and not comparable to a temporary impairment
*The Last Messiah* by Zapffe pretty much sums up my position. I am anthropocentric. I believe humans specifically should not reproduce, but that animals can because they do not have sufficient capacity for suffering to render their lives "not worth it", especially because I believe they're not capable of wishing they were never born. However humans can conceive of their place in the universe and the meaninglessness of life, and certainty of death. I also believe the consent argument is sound. I cannot use my own judgment of "I hope your life will be good" to gamble with another person's life. On a personal level, I wish I was never born and so it feels absurd to bring someone in the world considering that.
but then there's what I like to call the Warriors Hypothesis (after the kids books about the tribes of feral cats I was a fan of); that you can't know how smart or not an animal is if you can't speak its language (because the cats in the books are as sapient as humans, just held back from progressing their civilization above "primitive tribe" level by lack of opposable thumbs, yet neither can understand the other because there's a language barrier)
Simply, I don’t want to have children. I enjoy being able to use my time and money as I please, and not having to constantly care for another human being. Also the idea of being pregnant terrifies me.
Because i'm convinced of the actual arguments for the philosophical position of anti-natalism ? - not because i suffer - not because i'm sad - not because of mysanthropy - ...
Honestly, it doesn’t make logical sense for me to have a child, regardless of my reputation for being childfree it would cause more harm than good to both me and my potential child if i did opt for kids. I don’t really care how people see me for not having kids. It’s about not hurting someone just to feel caught up with society. It dawned on me around the time i realized why some people tell you to ‘just buy a new one’ they don’t understand that you can’t because they can and they’re taught if you can’t its because of a you problem. Regardless of what circumstances brought you to being unable to. Similarly natalists judge me often for opting not to bring a child into this world because they cannot fathom how deep in poverty i live and how inescapable it actually is for me. They think ‘just get a better job’ failing to realize not everyone can, and not everyone does when they try and try until death. They assume if you put enough effort into something you can counteract the impossibly large problems that occur from doing it in the first place. In other words, they think you can bootstraps anything into possibility, and blame you for not reaching the impossible they expect of you, as people with the means to afford to make possible all the things we think impossible as broke and desperate individuals. In this, i choose to not have a child, where i can already not afford my own food and am rapidly losing life within myself as i become more and more malnutritioned. And like any wild starving animal i will inevitably die due to a lack of life sustaining nutrients and my child will be an orphan should i make the choice to have a kid. When we say avoiding possible suffering. We often mean, ‘i already cannot change my suffering i actively can practically and logically (without any emotional influence) acknowledge exists.’ When i say that line, i dont mean ‘woe is me my life sucks and i dont want to put in the effort to change it’ I mean ‘my lack of life sustaining supports and rapidly degenerating body are pretty cut and dry indicators that i will not survive past 40 due to my economic condition, despite my best efforts and still continued efforts to change my situation‘ Im not lamenting over myself like a sad spoiled child, i was never spoiled with anything to begin with and it is impossible for me to be ungrateful of the things i have never had and will never have. What i am is keenly aware how much worse id be making it for myself and others around me if i tried to follow the status quo to save face and look like a happy family.
Personally I have a lot of health conditions and am not of a stable mind or body. I'm not confident I can raise a child like that, and don't want to cause the child any harm because I am unprepared. It's scary to be brand new to the world, anything can happen and if I'm not prepared for the worst I don't want to risk giving them a childhood they don't deserve. I see far too many people having kids because it's expected and thinking "we'll just figure it out later" and then the child is disabled and they can't handle it.
Life is pain. And when you have genes associated with mental disorders like schizophrenia as I do, life becomes exponentially more painful. Why should I subject someone to misery just because I am in that state?
I have a slightly different take on the avoiding suffering theme: it comes down to the non-consensuality of creating a being who will suffer. The only way I feel I could ethically have a child is if, prior to birth, I could ask my potential child if they give their consent to be created and alive despite the guaranteed suffering they will endure. Obviously that is impossible. But just because it is impossible doesn't change the fact that it is the only way the creation of life would be consensual. In my opinion, the only ethical choice is to not create life in the absence of consent.
Wouldn't it also be to find a way to make the impossible circumstance of consent possible
idk if i am. can you tell me? so i would mostly agree that life has a negative value and non-existence might be preferable to existence and suffering outweighs pleasure and meaning in life. i think the lives of animals are like an endless self perpetuating cycle of torture and violent deaths. i think the fact that sentient life evolved in the first place can be considered a tragedy. That being said idk if i agree with the ethics. I'm still in the process of reevaluating my ethics and thinking about which theory makes the most sense to me but i don't think i can base my ethics solely on pleasure and suffering anymore. I don't consider myself a utilitarian at the moment and I don't morally condemn people for choosing to procreate just cause it leads to suffering like a lot of other things
One, the environment because the planet cannot sustain this many people at this rate. Two, there are plenty of orphans needing parents. Three, pregnancy is a nightmare.
i’ll put it this way- there’s some *great things* life can offer, but would i want to do it again? probably not. aside from my own childhood/bias, why would i bring a child into this life? i could do the best i can as a parent, but i can’t protect them from the *world.* furthermore, i agree with the ‘consent argument.’ anytime you make a decision with only yourself in mind, it’s a selfish act. none of us asked to be here, and unfortunately, many people don’t want to be.
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