The Divine Right of Kings

Short but directly addressing the point, some exposition on the difference between accepting suffering in one's own life for reasons a, b or c, versus imposing suffering on another sentient being through the very act of creating that being in the first place. Specifically he asks "How much positive existence on the part of one person or group of people is a valid exchange for the suffering and disability of others?" Antinatalists are often viewed as whiners who, with their supposed inclination for always seeing the glass as half empty, overlook the positive aspects of life that make the suffering all worthwhile. This is a gross misunderstanding of the AN position. While it's true that we AN's often tend to harp on the negative aspects of sentient existence, these arguments are generally offered as a counter-balance set against a ubiquitous optimism bias that permeates most people's worldview, allowing them to justify procreation in a mostly simplistic and unexamined way. Consider this comment to the video from one who habitually takes the pronatalist position on YouTube-

they don't get it, life is about balancing your own suffering with your own joy... this is a different relationship than the joy of, say a slave owner, and the suffering of a slave.

I think it's due to being slaves so long so many only understand the latter, and not the fitting nature of taking on suffering for a goal you find WORTH the suffering or at least worth the risk.

pyrrho314

As you can see, the commenter has completely shot past the very argument he's commenting on. 'Taking on suffering' to further one's own desires is something completely different from imposing suffering (not to mention eventual death) on someone else.

In another video, DarwinsHamster discusses the premises inherent in logical discourse, suggesting that pronatalists might 'knock the ball out of the park' by simply asserting that one person's unhappiness is a satisfactory price to pay for other people's happiness. A sort of 'bite the bullet' approach. Of course, then it behooves the pronatalist to reconcile this position with the overall structure of their own ethical beliefs and moral sensibilities. From my own experience, this is the point where cognitive dissonance ensues, as the pronatalist is then forced to deviate, quite severely in some cases, from his own moral intuitions in order to justify his stance. We saw this here recently in the encounter with the Triablogue folks regarding the issue of bringing new lives into the world with the inherent risk of suffering eternal damnation.