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.
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.
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?
Yeah I have no idea why this person is on about. Antinatalism has literally nothing to do with eugenics. It's all about saying "fuck you I'm not going to make more cogs for the machine."
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.
"Positive" eugenics is also eugenics, i.e. nations that want more (insert racial or ethnic group) and encouraging those groups to reproduce are engaging in eugenics.
The OP isn't about eugenics of any sort. No one was talking about (negative) eugenics either until someone shoehorned it into the conversation.
I think it is intellectually dishonest to mention one type of eugenics while completely ignoring the other type, hence my bringing attention to a topic which has already been broached.
i just have a feeling raising kids will get harder and harder, because the economy is getting worse and more unequal. even factoring out climate change, its expensive to afford even my own survival.