Anti-Natalism is The Only Solution; Even if you don’t like it

From Schopenhauer and Kafka to Emil Cioran and Samuel Beckett, there remains one thing in common between these great men, the immediate understanding that life is not the gift society labels it to be. All of these great men mentioned above lived in Europe sometime in the 19th or the 20th century, with no climate-change or rampant famine to worry about, but they still theorized and worked greatly on the philosophy of ‘anti-natalism’. Ever wonder why?

Each one of these philosophers understood the deep sorrow, despair and meaninglessness of life. But I won’t extend my argument from a philosophical standpoint, since most people are not interested in philosophy and find it rather boring. My argument will be based on the current economic standards of the world and climate-change. In this modern capitalistic society, workers are expected to work at least 9 hours a day (11-12 hours in third world countries since human labour is easily dispensable), the nature of this labour might be physical (construction) or mental (IT or banking) but either way half of your day is gone ‘working’. Assuming people are allowed to sleep at least 6-7 hours a day, they would be left with 6 ‘spare’ hours each day. Now eating, drinking, washroom usage and being stuck in traffic end up consuming roughly 2-4 hours of this ‘spare’ time, effectively leaving our modern-day employee with 2-3 hours of personal ‘existence’. Society expects this worker to get married and have children and perpetuate this modern dread of existence within these 2-3 hours of personal existence, which is not only stupid but also insidious in more ways than one.

Coming to the climate change argument, planting a sapling (which will grow into a tree after 30 years), switching to EV’s (which produce an equal amount of emissions when their entire life cycle is considered) or using paper straws (come on) don’t accomplish anything absolutely at all. The only real solution to climate change hence is anti-natalism, or even having just one child (for people who really want to). With each passing year, the average global temperature is rising and so is the frequency of extreme-weather events, because the Earth was simply not made to handle 8.1 billion (810 crore) people. People in the western world consume an exorbitant amount of goods and as a result emit massive amounts of CO2 per year (64 tons) and people in the third-world want to emulate them. So not only are we (as a world) increasing the total number of people in existence every day, we also want them to consume more and more, with America as the benchmark. Congratulations, you have achieved the 6th mass extinction phase and a negative-feedback loop, which cannot be stopped, unless we stop having children drastically.

But, who cares about all of this. Let’s watch a movie or a YouTube short or an Instagram reel and let’s ignore the writer of this pessimistic blog. Walking down the main street of Kamla Nagar in April should have persuaded anyone with a functional brain to become an anti-natalist, the fact that it has not scares me to no end.