Anti-Natalism is Not Class Hatred

Every time anti-natalism comes up in leftist spaces, the same accusation appears almost immediately: “So you think poor people shouldn’t have kids?” That’s not what anti-natalism is.

There is a massive difference between criticizing poor people for reproducing and questioning whether bringing anyone into existence is ethical under conditions of unavoidable suffering. Yet anti-natalism is constantly flattened into a caricature of eugenics, elitism, or “capitalist talking points.” That reaction often misses how deeply capitalism itself depends on endless reproduction.

Capitalism needs workers. It needs consumers. It needs renters, debtors, soldiers, and future laborers. A system built on perpetual growth requires a constant supply of new human beings to sustain it. Reproduction is not outside capitalism, it’s one of the mechanisms through which capitalism perpetuates itself. So when anti-natalists question reproduction, they are not necessarily attacking working class people. They are questioning the expectation that creating new life is automatically moral, necessary, or liberatory.

A common response from socialists and communists is that the real issue is material conditions. People suffer because capitalism creates poverty, insecurity, alienation, and exploitation. Therefore, the solution is not to discourage childbirth, but to build a world where people can thrive. Improving material conditions is obviously good. Fewer people suffering under poverty, medical debt, or homelessness is objectively preferable to the alternative. Anti-natalism asks a different question entirely.

Even in wealthy countries with strong social programs, people still experience grief, illness, depression, anxiety, aging, loneliness, and death. Even in ideal conditions, existence becomes packaged with loss and vulnerability. No amount of economic reform eliminates mortality or guarantees a meaningful life. The anti-natalist argument is not simply “the economy is bad.” It is that existence itself imposes suffering on people who never consented to being born in the first place. That is a philosophical argument, not a classist one. The distinction matters because people often confuse anti-natalism with selective breeding arguments. Eugenics says certain people should not reproduce because of who they are: poor, disabled, racialized, “undesirable,” etc.

Anti-natalism applies universally. It does not target one class or group. The argument is not “poor people shouldn’t have children.” The argument is “creating sentient beings inevitably exposes them to suffering, and we should seriously question whether that is ethical at all.” Those are fundamentally different positions.

As a matter of fact, many anti-natalists are deeply critical of systems that pressure poor people into parenthood while simultaneously denying them healthcare, housing, childcare, and stability. Criticizing reproduction under oppressive systems is not the same as blaming oppressed people for existing within those systems.

Another issue is how deeply reproduction is romanticized across political ideologies. Conservatives frame childbirth as tradition and duty. Liberals frame it as fulfillment and personal choice. Even many leftists frame it as hope for the future or an act of resistance, but very few people interrogate the assumption that creating new life is inherently good.

There is immense social pressure to reproduce. People who don’t want children are often treated as immature, selfish, damaged, or nihilistic. Meanwhile, having children is treated as morally neutral or even virtuous by default, despite the fact that parenthood imposes life — and all its suffering — onto another person without their consent. Anti-natalism disrupts that assumption, which is why it provokes such hostility.

Human beings are biologically and socially driven toward reproduction, but inevitably it’s not the same thing as morality. People will continue doing many things that deserve ethical scrutiny. The fact that something is natural or historically common doesn’t automatically make it ethical. Anti-natalism isn’t a legislative project to forcibly stop reproduction. For most anti-natalists, it’s a philosophical position about harm reduction and ethical responsibility.

At its core, anti-natalism is often rooted less in hatred of humanity than in empathy for it. Many anti-natalists arrive at their position not because they despise people, but because they are acutely aware of suffering, poverty, violence, trauma, disease, loneliness, exploitation, ecological collapse, and the quiet pain woven into ordinary existence. To them, refusing to impose life on another person is not cruelty. It’s restraint.

You don’t have to agree with anti-natalism to engage with it honestly. Dismissing it as merely “capitalist propaganda” ignores the deeper ethical question it raises: If life guarantees suffering, and no one can consent to being born, why is creating life treated as morally unquestionable?

On Remaining, Regrettably

I regret to inform you that I will not be dying today.


This is not out of hope, nor courage, nor any particularly admirable trait. Let the record show: I remain unconvinced by life’s supposed “beauty,” unmoved by its sales pitch, and deeply suspicious of anyone who describes it as a gift without including a receipt.


No, my continued existence is, at best, a clerical error I have chosen not to correct.
I have reviewed the arguments. I have read The Myth of Sisyphus and noted the insistence that one must imagine Sisyphus happy. I do not imagine him happy. I imagine him tired, irritated, and increasingly passive-aggressive toward the rock. And yet, he pushes.


Not because it matters. Not because it ends. But because the alternative would grant the universe a kind of victory it has not earned.


I have also consulted Emil Cioran, who kindly confirmed that existence is, in fact, a mistake. A relief, honestly. It’s nice to have that in writing. Still, even he lingered; complaining, observing, refusing to exit the stage he so clearly despised.
Which brings me here: not hopeful, not redeemed, but… present.


Let it be known that I do not stay for the usual reasons. Not for destiny, nor progress, nor the vague promise that things will “get better.” I stay out of curiosity, irritation, and a stubborn refusal to let absurdity have the last word.
If existence insists on being meaningless, then I will insist on experiencing it anyway. If only to document the failure.
I will drink bad coffee. I will argue with strangers. I will laugh at things that probably shouldn’t be funny. I will continue to observe humanity with a mix of fascination and disappointment, like a critic who refuses to leave a terrible play.


And yes, I will continue to wake up—begrudgingly, skeptically, but consistently.
Not as an act of faith.
As an act of defiance.
So no, this is not a farewell. It is, if anything, a protest. A refusal to resolve the tension. A decision to remain, not because life is good, but because it is absurd, and I am not finished mocking it.


Sincerely,
Someone who is still, inexplicably, here

The Strangest Thing About Being an Anti-Natalist

The strangest thing about being an anti-natalist isn’t the philosophy, it’s how angry people get about it. I’m not proposing laws. I’m not advocating forced sterilization. I’m not suggesting the state regulate reproduction. All I’m doing is saying I don’t think having children is ethically justified, and that I personally choose not to do it. Yet somehow that turns into accusations of eugenics, nihilism, fascism, or wanting to wipe out humanity.

This is interesting because the philosophy most people are actually arguing with — usually without realizing it — comes from thinkers like David Benatar, whose book Better Never to Have Been makes a pretty straightforward argument: bringing someone into existence exposes them to suffering to which they never consented. That’s it. That’s the core of it. And once you see the argument clearly, it’s hard to unsee.

Nobody consents to being born. That’s not rhetorical flourish. It’s just a fact. Every other major moral system we use in society revolves around consent. We treat it as one of the most basic ethical principles we have. Yet the biggest decision anyone will ever experience — the decision that creates their entire existence — is made without it.

Now, obviously, consent from a nonexistent person is impossible. Anti-natalism recognizes that, but that impossibility doesn’t magically make the ethical problem disappear. Instead it raises a question:

If creating someone exposes them to pain, illness, loss, anxiety, and eventually death … what’s the moral justification for doing it?

“But life is good!”

This is the first response. People say life is beautiful, meaningful, joyful. Sometimes it is. Anti-natalism doesn’t deny that pleasure exists. The argument is that pleasure doesn’t justify imposing suffering on someone who didn’t ask for the gamble in the first place. You can’t miss pleasures you were never born to experience, but if you’re born, you can absolutely experience suffering, and everyone does.

There’s also the eugenics accusation. One of the strangest criticisms I’ve heard over the past two days is that anti-natalism is a form of eugenics. This makes absolutely no sense. Eugenics is about selective reproduction. Deciding who should reproduce based on genetics, race, disability, or social status. It doesn’t say certain people shouldn’t have children. It says no one has a morally compelling reason to create new people at all. If anything, that’s the opposite of eugenics. Eugenics wants better babies. Anti-natalism questions whether creating babies in the first place is ethical.

Then there’s the whole “But what about the future?” This is another common argument that refusing to reproduce is defeatist. People say humanity needs future generations to fix the world. But this argument quietly assumes something strange: That the solution to suffering is creating new people who will inherit it. Imagine solving poverty by creating more poor people who might someday fix poverty. Imagine solving war by creating more soldiers. At some point the logic starts to look less like hope and more like a pyramid scheme.

The intensity of the backlash says something interesting. Anti-natalism isn’t just a philosophical argument. It pokes at one of the deepest assumptions our culture has: that having children is automatically meaningful, noble, and morally good. Questioning that assumption feels threatening. If reproduction isn’t inherently justified, then one of humanity’s most fundamental behaviors suddenly requires ethical scrutiny. That’s uncomfortable. So the response is often to attack the person making the argument instead of engaging with the argument itself.

At the end of the day, my decision to not have children doesn’t harm anyone. It doesn’t take anything away from people who wants families. But the philosophy matters because it forces us to confront a question most people never ask:

“Why do we assume creating life is morally neutral — or even good — by default?”

Maybe the answer is still yes. Maybe humanity keeps going forever. But if that’s the case, it should at least be a decision people think about seriously instead of treating reproduction as something automatic. If nothing else, anti-natalism forces that conversation. And judging by the reactions I’ve been seeing online the past two days, it’s a conversation a lot of people would rather avoid.

If the World is So Evil…

… why bring children into it?

We live in an age of relentless pessimism. People openly describe the world as corrupt, violent, exploitative, collapsing. Climate catastrophe is treated as inevitable. Political institutions are widely regarded as illegitimate or captured. Economic systems grind people down while enriching a few. Mental illness is endemic. War is normalized. Surveillance is constant. The future feels smaller than the past.

And yet, in the midst of it all, bringing a child into the world is treated as a moral good — often as the highest good — beyond question or critique.

This deserves examination.

If you sincerely believe the world is dangerous, unjust, and spiraling toward catastrophe, then procreation is not a neutral act. It is a decision to expose a new, defenseless person to conditions you already recognize as harmful. We should not knowingly drop a child into a burning building and call it hope. We should not place someone in a collapsing system and call it love. But when it comes to existence itself, the moral scrutiny vanishes. Why?

Because reproduction is culturally insulated from ethical analysis. It is framed as instinct, destiny, or sacred duty rather than a choice with consequences. Once an act is treated as “natural,” we stop asking whether it is just.

A child does not consent to being born. That is unavoidable. But what follows from that fact is rarely taken seriously. Once someone exists, they are compelled to participate in a system they did not choose: they must labor, obey laws, endure illness, suffer loss, and eventually die. Even the best possible life includes fear, grief, and pain. The worst lives include exploitation, abuse, hunger, and despair.

Crucially, non-existence deprives no one, while existence exposes someone to harm. This is a moral asymmetry people are deeply uncomfortable acknowledging, because it challenges one of our oldest assumptions: that life is always a gift. But a gift is something you can refuse. Existence is not.

“But they’ll make the world better!”

This is the most common defense, and it sounds noble. But it smuggles something deeply troubling into the argument. It assigns a moral burden to someone who does not yet exist. It treats a child as a future solution to problems created by adults, systems, and history. It converts hope into obligation.

If the world is broken, the responsibility to fix it belongs to those already here. Creating a new person in order to justify optimism is not hope, it is deferral. It is also a gamble. For every child who grows into a reformer, countless others will struggle to survive. Many will be crushed by the very forces they were supposed to redeem.

Another common move is to romanticize suffering. Pain becomes “growth.” Struggle becomes “meaning.” Trauma becomes “what makes us human.” This is easy to say when the suffering is abstract or belongs to someone else. But no one thanks their parents for giving them anxiety, grief, or an early death. No one looks back on war, illness, or exploitation and says, “I’m glad to endure that.” Meaning is something people construct in spite of suffering, not because suffering is good. To impose suffering without consent and then praise resilience is a moral sleight of hand.

Many people do not actively decide to have children. They drift into it. It’s what people do. It’s expected. Questioning it feels like questioning life itself, but default choices are still choices. And when the stakes involve an entire huma lifetime “I didn’t really think about it” is not an ethical defense.

Refusing to create life in a world you believe is dangerous is not nihilism. It’s moral restraint.

This argument is often misread as hatred of life or contempt for children. It is neither.

It is an attempt to take suffering seriously, to refuse to minimize it, normalize it, or pass it along out of habit or hope. It is a refusal to gamble with someone else’s pain in order to make existence feel meaningful.

If we truly believe the world is cruel, unstable, and unjust, the the most honest response may not be reproduction, but responsibility: caring for those who already exist, reducing harm where we can, and resisting the systems that make life so precarious.

Love does not require creation. Sometimes, love looks like restraint.

Constructing the Devil

The literary imagination has long been fascinated with the figures of Satan, demons, and fallen angels. Three landmark works approach this fascination from wildly different angles: Glen Duncan’s irreverent I, Lucifer (2002), John Milton’s epic Paradise Lost (1667), and C.S. Lewis’s satirical The Screwtape Letters (1942). Each engages with questions of morality, free will, and the nature of evil, but in unique voices, styles, and theological contexts.

A defining difference among the three works lies in narrative perspective. Paradise Lost tells the cosmic story of the Fall from an omniscient, epic lens, though it occasionally centers on Satan to explore his psychological complexity. Milton gives readers a poetic, tragic view of rebellion: Satan is charismatic and heroic in a certain sense, but ultimately flawed and doomed. The narrative commands awe and reflection rather than intimacy.

By contrast I, Lucifer delivers a confessional first-person perspective. Lucifer narrates his own life, resurrected into modern-day London, and recounts his experiences with biting humor and human-like cynicism. Duncan’s Lucifer is witty, crude, and self-aware. He’s a charming antihero who critiques humanity with satire that feels very contemporary.

C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters occupies a middle ground: it’s first-person, but from the perspective of Screwtape, a senior demon instructing his nephew on tempting humans. The letters are epistolary, clever, and moralistic, using satire to illuminate human weaknesses and Christian doctrine. Unlike Milton’s epic or Duncan’s brash Lucifer, Lewis keeps readers amused while provoking reflection on morality.

All three texts wrestle with the nature of evil and free will, but they approach it differently. Paradise Lost is theological and grand: evil exists as rebellion against God, and free will is a divine gift whose misuse leads to cosmic consequences. Satan’s pride and ambition catalyze the Fall, while Adam and Eve’s choices underscore humanity’s moral responsibility.

In I, Lucifer, evil is treated with irreverent irony. Lucifer is not scheming to corrupt humans on a cosmic scale, he observes, manipulates, and comments on human foibles. Free will is playful and ironic; humans are absurd, often predictable, and their suffering is as comical as it is tragic. The novel questions morality through humor, suggesting that divine and infernal plans alike are ultimately petty when faced with human chaos.

The Screwtape Letters bridges these approaches. Lewis presents evil as both subtle and systematic: temptation exploits human weakness in small, strategic ways. Free will remains central, but the narrative emphasizes spiritual awareness and moral vigilance rather than cosmic tragedy. Here, humanity is neither absurdly comic nor epic; it is a site of moral struggle, where seemingly minor choices have eternal significance.

The tonal differences among the three works are striking. Milton’s verse is formal, elevated, and grandiose. Befitting an epic poem that seeks to explore the universe itself. Duncan’s prose is colloquial, sardonic, and irreverent, mixing humor with existential despair. Lewis’s letters are witty, controlled, and satirical, with a tone that is both instructive and humorous, relying on irony and clever rhetoric rather than dramatic flourish.

Milton’s work emphasizes the consequences of pride, disobedience, and rebellion against divine order. I, Lucifer revels in moral ambiguity, exploring the absurdity and contradictions of human and divine behavior. The Screwtape Letters combines moral instruction with satire, emphasizing vigilance, humility, and spiritual growth.

In essence, Paradise Lost inspires awe and contemplation of cosmic morality, I, Lucifer entertains while critiquing the absurdity of morality and human behavior, and The Screwtape Letters instructs through irony and imaginative inversion of the moral universe.

Despite their differences, these works are united in their fascination with the fallen, the forbidden, and the morally complex. Milton’s Satan is tragic and epic, Duncan’s Lucifer is modern and sardonic, and Lewis’s Screwtape is cunning and instructional. Together, they showcase the richness of literature that examines evil not just as a concept, but as a lens through which to explore human nature, free will, and morality.

For readers interested in theology, philosophy, satire, or just a fresh perspective on one of literature’s most infamous characters, these three works offer complementary and contrasting journeys through the mind of the devil, and, ultimately, the human soul.

Not My Words, but I Share the Sentiment

“Consumerism is going to be the death rattle of this country. Not war. Not some foreign boogeyman. The shopping cart and the endless scroll.

“I keep seeing people say “why is nobody doing anything about what came out of the Epstein files?” and the answer is painfully obvious. Because the Super Bowl is this Sunday. Because your show just dropped a new episode. Because you can swipe your thumb and get another dopamine pellet like a lab rat that learned the trick too well.

“Back in Marx’s day, religion was the opium of the people. A soothing fog to dull the pain of exploitation and keep everyone compliant. Same function, different costume. Today it’s Amazon Prime, TikTok Shop, and Netflix. Monthly subscriptions instead of sermons. Next-day shipping instead of salvation. Infinite content instead of heaven. The promise is identical: don’t change the world, just endure it quietly while we keep you sedated.

“We are drowning in revelations and choosing distraction. Not because people are stupid, but because attention is terrifying. Paying attention means admitting the world is rotten in ways that can’t be fixed with a purchase, a binge, or a brand identity. Escapism is safer. Escapism doesn’t ask anything of you. Escapism lets you feel informed without acting and angry without risk.

“Consumer culture doesn’t just sell products. It sells anesthesia. It teaches us to process horror by changing the channel, to respond to abuse with vibes and reactions and content. Outrage becomes another consumable. Even disgust gets monetized, packaged between ads, then forgotten by the next refresh.

“So nothing happens. Not because nothing matters, but because we’ve been trained to treat everything as temporary content. Scroll past the monsters. Clap for the halftime show. Keep the fantasy running. Reality is bad for engagement metrics.

That’s the trap. A population too distracted to revolt, too entertained to organize, too exhausted to look directly at the truth for more than twelve seconds at a time. Consumerism doesn’t need to silence us. It just needs to keep us busy.”

Just a Few Quick Things

FUCK TRUMP!

FUCK ICE!

FUCK ISRAEL!

FREE PALESTINE!

FREE CONGO!

FREE SUDAN!

FUCK IMPERIALISM!

FUCK COLONIZATION!

FUCK AMERICANIZATION!

FUCK AMERICA!

FUCK DEMOCRATS!

FUCK REPUBLICANS!

FUCK LIBERTARIANS!

The only way out of this is through leftist thought. So gather your communist, socialist, and anarchist friends, get yourself armed, and start making plans.

Why I Walked Away from WWE

Here’s something you may not know about me: I used to be a huge pro wrestling fan. I started with WCW, but then they got bought out by WWF (now WWE.) I knew it was all bullshit storylines and bullshit feuds, but it was entertaining. After so many years though, I drew a line. The entire illusion died when WWE partnered with Saudi Arabia.

People frame the deal as a moral lapse or a bad PR move. It wasn’t. It was capitalism doing exactly what it’s designed to do. Capital does not care where money comes from, only that it comes. When accumulation is the highest value, repression becomes just another market.

The Saudi shows weren’t “global expansion.” They were sportswashing: using spectacle to launder the image of a state built on censorship, executions, and violence against dissenters. WWE didn’t wander into that role accidentally, it accepted it enthusiastically, signed long-term contracts, and adjusted its product to fit the needs of power.

And this is where the “it’s just wrestling” defense collapses. WWE actively reshaped its content” editing women’s gear, limiting performers, scrubbing chants, rewriting narratives. That’s not neutrality. That’s discipline. Capital always demands discipline, especially from bodies.

Which makes sense because WWE has always been a factory that runs on bodies.

Wrestlers are classified as “independent contractors” while being controlled like employees. Injuries are treated as costs of doing business. Unionization is crushed before it can form. Careers are shortened, pain is normalized, and the company walks away clean. The Saudi deal didn’t contradict this model, it extended it. If workers’ bodies can be consumed for profit, why not public conscience too?

What WWE exposed is something bigger than wrestling. Under capitalism, there is no ethical entertainment, only profitable entertainment. Values exist only until they interfere with revenue. Empowerment is a slogan. Progress is branding. Human rights are negotiable.

Boycotting WWE isn’t about pretending my absence would topple a billion-dollar corporation. It was about refusing to play my assigned role as passive consumer while capital uses spectacle to anesthetize atrocity. Capital wants you entertained, distracted, and grateful, never asking where the money comes from or who pays the price.

I miss wrestling. But what I miss was never just the product. It was the illusion that something I loved existed outside the logic of extraction and domination. The Saudi deal shattered that illusion completely.

WWE didn’t betray its fans. It told the truth about itself. And once you see that truth — that capital has no red lines, only price points — you can’t unsee it.

Walking away wasn’t purity. It was clarity.

Why I Believe in God

I’ve recently joined a new church. For the longest time I refused to go to church. It wasn’t that I lost my belief in God or anything of that nature. As the saying goes, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” It was a lot of that for me. I experienced being bullied in church as well as witnessing racism in the church. After that, I swore I’d never attend another Baptist church. And with the exception of funerals and the occasional Christmas, I haven’t.

I was asked by a dear friend why I believe in God in the first place. I’ve thought about this a lot and I hope I can answer this here and now. You see, people expect belief in God to come with sunshine, hymns, and an emotional montage about “finding peace.” That’s never been my story. I don’t believe because life is beautiful. I don’t believe because everything makes sense. I believe because the world often feels like a meat grinder, and I refuse to accept that this is all there is.

For me, belief isn’t about evidence. It’s not about some philosophical proof that wraps the universe in a neat bow. It’s not about doctrine, denomination, or the kind of theological gymnastics that some people use to win arguments. My belief is simpler and much more stubborn: I reject the idea that this life, with all its cruelty, absurdity, and chaos, gets the final word.

When you’ve seen enough of the world’s ugliness, you reach a fork in the road. One direction says: “This is it. Meaning is an illusion. Suffering is the point. Eventually we all vanish and nothing matters.” Plenty of thinkers I admire lean into that: Cioran, Schopenhauer, Ligotti. They saw the darkness clearly. But even they never managed to convince me that the darkness is absolute.

The other direction says “Maybe the absurdity isn’t the whole picture. Maybe the pain isn’t the whole story. Maybe something exists beyond the mess.” That “maybe” is where my belief lives.

I don’t need a heaven with golden streets or a God with a perfect PR team. I just need the possibility — the hint — that existence isn’t limited to this bleak stretch of highway we’re traveling. That there’s depth behind the veil. That suffering isn’t the only language the universe speaks.

Call it faith. Call it refusal. Call it philosophical stubbornness. I believe in God because the alternative feels too small for the scale of human experience … too empty, too bleak, too final. If this life is just pain, noise, and entropy on repeat, then the whole thing collapses under its own weight. I believe because I need there to be something more, something better, something that outlasts the cruelty.

And that’s enough for me.