Have ya'll ever met eugenicists and racists? those are some of the most natalist motherfuckers out there. You think all the mystic woo woo "having children is like +1 good" bullshit you want, THOSE PEOPLE THINK THAT HARDER THAN YOU DO!!!
This rant is sponsored by yesterday's grandma demanding in the form of a question when I'm going to shit out babies for her and also random strawman comments in an obscure subreddit.
Edit: ITT: people actually starting to bully me for not wanting to have kids. Did not expect this on "leftist" website.
Because anti-natalism isn't about personally not wanting to have children, it's about the belief that having children is morally wrong, which always harkens back to malthusian arguments about overpopulation, classist bullshit about the poors breeding too much and irresponsibly, and nihilism. It's definitely not a revolutionary ideology by any means.
Anti-natalism really has little connection to Malthusianism, the people who use both are just cynical misanthropes. There is no ideal lower population number for the anti-natalist except 0 because their concern isn't with carrying capacity or whatever but what they see as the fundamental nature of sentient life.
David Benatar, the main anti-natalist 'theory' guy, has a whole section in his book on overpulation. It's definitely one of their talking points.
He then goes on to say argue that any number of people are too many people, but that having an "overpopulation" of people is worse than having just a few.
Yeah, every anti-natalist I've ever read or spoken with cared much more about "overpopulation" than the issue of consent at being brought into existence. Anti-natalism is without any doubt very strongly tied to malthusian nonsense even if some of the more philosophically educated among them like to couch it in terms of sentience and consent. To think otherwise is to completely misunderstand the movement.
Edit to clarify: I know that there are plenty of people who exist who hold the position that what is problematic is that life inherently involves suffering and so bringing it about is causing suffering which is immoral. I'm even somewhat sympathetic to that view even if I don't agree with the very premise of it. But I've (personally, anecdotally) never seen those people refer to themselves as anti-natalist. However those who have self described as anti-natalist and certainly any of them who considered themselves part of a movement were eco-fash adjacent malthusians. The overall anti-natalist movement is deeply entwined with and cannot be separated from malthusianism.
DB might be the most big-name modern antinatalist, but he doesn't speak for the view in its entirety. In fact, I would consider him to be under the cynical misanthrope label for just the reasons you describe.
I am sympathetic to the antinatalist viewpoint but have zero sympathy for malthusianism or eugenics. My sympathy for antinatalism comes more from what Schopenhauer suggests rather than Benetar's bullshit. Ironically, I think there is sort of a logical fork between antinatalism and transhumanism where it is at least extremely difficult to counter the purely antinatalist view without relying on the (to be clear, very real) possibility that we can change what it means to be human on a fundamental level in order to make it better (and yes, this could only be meaningfully accomplished in a socialist society, it would be a eugenic nightmare under capitalism).
Is there a term for "I'm tired of natalists abusing me 24/7" that doesn't mean all these wacky words? My personal decision to not have kids is economically dictated by capitalism creating a descending hellscape than any of those other mystery words.
Not entirely sure but, based on what I’ve seen, the individual choice to abstain is labelled “child-free”
Just "not personally wanting to have kids".
Anti-natalism means you think humanity as a whole should stop reproducing, and that reproducing in general is immoral. If that's not something you agree with, then you are not an anti-natalist.