#pro-natalism

[idroolinmysleep]

TL;DR: these are kid-smacking low-key eugenicists who give their children names like “Industry Americus” and think that keeping a home warm is a pointless extravagance.

The Guardian profiles pronatalists Malcolm and Simone Collins, and boy, these people are so full of themselves. Their commitment to effective altruism (you know, the same movement championed by Sam Bankman-Fried, who’s now in prison) somehow leads them to … not heat their home in winter?

as effective altruists, they give everything they can spare to charity (their [personal] charities). “Any pointless indulgence, like heating the house in the winter, we try to avoid if we can find other solutions,” says Malcolm.

And, for a couple who wants to have lots of babies, they don’t seem to like children very much.

The Collinses believe in childcare, but not maternity leave: Simone has never taken any. She will have the day of her C-section off “because of the drugs,” but will take work calls from hospital the day after. She tells me it’s because she’s “bored out of my mind” when she’s stuck with a newborn. … Malcolm tells me how much he doesn’t like babies. “Objectively, they are trying and they are aggravating. They are gross. This little bomb that goes off crying in this big explosion of poo and mucus every 30, 40 minutes. And it doesn’t have a personality, really.”

As for what that childcare looks like? They learned it from watching wild animals. For real.

Malcolm tells me that he and Simone have developed a parenting style based on something she observed when she saw tigers in the wild: they react to bad behaviour from their cubs with a paw, a quick negative response in the moment, which they find very effective with their own kids.

Lovely couple, these two.

[maaruin]

I watched the Abortion Episode of Battlestar Galactica again and Roslin is an idiot if she thinks that outlawing abortion will in any way solve the demographic problem the survivors of humanity have. (If she isn't an idiot, then she did it to pander to religious voters - but even that wouldn't have been a good strategic choice, because it allowed Balter his opening to challenge her by supporting the rights liberal voters consider important - and liberal voters seem to be the majority in the fleet.)

I wish the series actually seriously considered anti-natalism and pro-natalism in this situation. Is it right to have children when the future is bleak? Is the survival of humanity as a species into the future a thing worth fighting for? How can people be incentivized to found families when they are fighting for survival?

Honestly this rewatch may end up with liking BSG less, because I notice how they are missing many interesting questions and how many characters act less intelligently than they should.

[sophrxsynes]

remember back in the rcdart era of tumblr when drawing fetishistic hyperfeminine caricatures of trans men with huge tits and hips and snatched waists and womens lingerie and makeup and pussies out got you ran off the site. now it's completely encouraged and is the default way people portray trans men and if you have a problem with it suddenly you're the monster. normal pro trans website great allyship

[balkanradfem]

Learning more about animals made me think about an interesting comparison on how we decide to reproduce, compared to how animals do it.

In the wild, animals will usually reproduce less, or simply survive less and thus do less populating, if the habitat isn't suitable for them, temperature is wrong, and if they don't have enough reliable food sources. Sometimes they will be able to adapt to a different habitat and temperature, like having their reproduction cycle delayed or done in a different time of year so that their young would survive, but if there's no food source, they'll reproduce in smaller numbers.

This is why sometimes animals will overpopulate the areas near humans, if they're able to access people's food storage, trashbags and pantries, it will give them a great, fulfilling source of food and thus an incentive to reproduce as much as they want to - after all, there's food for everyone.

But with humans, it's like we don't even pay attention to that. Or rather, our reproduction is governed by culture that isn't built around human needs and quality of life. We're taught that we need to reproduce, especially if we're women, because:

everyone else is doing it and it's the only normal thing to do

if we don't do it we're failing to contribute to future society

we're going to be an outcast if we don't do it

we're going to end up alone and unloved if we don't do it

there's a limited time frame in which we can do it, and if we don't we might regret it later

there's intense pressure all around us from our peers, relatives, family, cousins and others to do it, and they are all assuming we will and ask us why

if we don't we're contributing to extinction of the human species

we're supposed to want to do it

we're threatened of missing out on a fulfilled life if we don't do it

we're depicted as wasted potential if we don't do it

we're told it's what we exist for and it should be our only purpose to do it

And this fails to take into account absolutely everything that comes into being with creating human life. We aren't supposed to pay attention to the amount and quality of food that we have, to the state of the habitat all around us (if we can even access the information about it), the amount of energy, free time and willingness we have to nurture and raise a human child, or what kind of life this child can have in a world like this. It's almost like we're pushed to be more mindless than animals, reproducing simply because it's the thing that is done, rather than assessing the situation and making a reasonable call of whether someone should be living in a world in this state.

So whose idea was it to create a culture like this, who benefits from it? The answer is very simple, m*n. Just from looking at the culture they developed, it's obvious they don't care about the quality, length, or resources put into a new human's life, all they care about is producing as much offspring as possible, regardless of circumstances. All of the beliefs I've mentioned above, that are forced onto women, come from that simple-minded desire: let us multiply uncontrollably. That's also where the idea of taking away womens choices comes from; it makes it all male choice. They can decide for a woman, whether she'll have a child or not, giving them absolute control over human reproduction, while they clearly do not care what kind of society this builds or what are the consequences for the said children.

When this control is put into women's hands, all of these circumstances are taken into account. Quality of environment, available funds, food, energy, human influence, the amount of danger and threat to the child, the climate, the chance of that child having a safe and happy life, woman will be aware of all of this, because she is the one who will make sure that child stays alive and well. Fathers can ignore all of this because they know mothers will take on this labour on themselves if given no other options.

I've read recently, on how human lifespan increased so grandmothers would be able to take care of their grandchildren, giving the parents more time to work and care for themselves, and isn't it interesting? How only women were ever expected to do that. Every grandfather I've heard of was not only incapable of taking care of a child, but also incapable of taking care of himself, burdening his wife with his every need until his death. Often, they were also a danger to the children (not every single time, but often enough to be mentioned).

And we're stuck in the world where they're the ones making the calls to create more children endlessly, all while ignoring the circumstances of that child's life, and doing massive acts of violence, wars, terrorism, destruction and devastation of human life worldwide, ultimately killing both mothers and children.

It feels wrong on every level that anyone except women should have authority on human life, when to reproduce and in which circumstances. We have to endure devastating trauma and pain, intrusion in our own bodies and risk of death to make just one person. We evolved to live longer in order to take care of children, to create a better environment for them to live in, and we should let someone else make the call? It's insane.

Not only women should have the ultimate say in this, for the sake of quality of human life and the environment, but all of the culture surrounding reproduction should change. Making children in a world where we can't care for, feed and protect them isn't normal. Not paying attention to whether a creation of a child will only cause extra suffering to the child, is not how we create a future our children can live happily in. Males spreading their broken dna is not worth creating a human society that is built up on suffering, and will lead into more suffering.

[superfuxkinghungry]

Why put a living breathing being into a world full of torture, racism, physical pain, mental illness, mental pain, disabilities, danger, murder, restrictions, and hate rather than just let your little children rest in a no pain feeling no thirst or hunger feeling forever state of unconsciousness? Sounds soooo much better than making those cute little babes suffer inflation, climate change, societal norm, and other nasty stuff 🥺🤢

[rotzaprachim]

pro and anti natalists are both so freaky

[niiwa-angel]

Guys... Guess who is OFFICIALLY approved for a tubal ligation?

This girl!!!

[theambivalentagender]

Reminder that if you want to complain about something you see in free fan content that you think is cliche or overdone, considering instead

1) Moving on to different content

2) Removing your entitled head from your ass

And if you end up equating mundane cliches you're annoyed at seeing in fan content with somehow encouraging and perpetrating negative aspects of society as a whole, consider instead

1) Touching grass. Eating grass. Getting down in there and SNORTING grass for the love of fuck

[idroolinmysleep]

Well, now. The pronatalist couple featured in a recent Guardian profile is getting flak for their kid-smacking ways, and this is how they chose to respond:

"We are kind of shocked by the racism threaded throughout this recent controversy. It is pretty well-documented that African Americans and other minority groups practice corporal punishment much more than other groups," Simone Collins said via email, linking to a CNN article published in 2011. Malcolm Collins said it was "uniquely offensive" to him considering "the majority of Americans practice some form of corporal punishment, as you can see from the statistics with specifically that being the minority groups of Americans. So yeah, I think it's an arguably racist position."

Uh, guys, maybe this doesn't have anything to do with race at all? Immediately pulling the race card isn't going to win anyone over to your side. 🤦‍♀️

[elhopper1sm]

People apparently make friends thru social media somehow. I don't know how the fuck that works. Every person I see looks like they could use a good shot to the head. Ngl. I hate most people I see just walking down the street. Just them breathing pisses me off. I hate all of them. Stupid fuckers.

[skepticalpigeon]

Seeing people who are super nonchalant about childbirth and think it's totally normal and fine is like seeing one of those gymnasts who can stretch and bend in ways you'd previously think impossible for a human being. Like cool that you can do that. Cool that it's easy for you to do that. If I tried to do that I'm pretty sure I'd either die or be irreparably harmed.

[jochemji]

𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐂𝐇𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐒 𝑖 𝑔𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑚𝑦 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡

(ignora o fato da música ser sobre um coração partido)

Jochem não é ligado ao feriado, odeia frio e neve, mas é apegado ao que tem por trás do dia em questão. Quando está na Grécia, apesar de trabalhar no dia, é sempre liberado mais cedo e se junta a família para comemorar com comida e troca de presentes, é mais pela tradição pessoal que liga ele as pessoas que ele ama. Não é diferente agora, mesmo não estando em casa, o coreano procurou seguir essa tradição, mesmo que não por completo, e se empenhou em fazer boas memórias com isso, já que estava sendo obrigado a estar longe de sua família.

A começar pelo presente que comprou para @notprinceadonis, na verdade, Jochem achou que era legal dar algo para o verdadeiro príncipe e quando foi buscar a peça que seria enviada para o verdadeiro herdeiro da coroa, encontrou aquele colar. Era um típico relicário clássico, mas a pintura no interior que parecia a galáxia foi o que atraiu o homem, saindo da loja com duas caixinhas contendo duas joias diferentes. Uma delas era um anel de ouro para crianças pequenas, porque na Coréia, dar um anel de ouro no primeiro aniversário do bebê é uma tradição, onde se deseja que os bebês tenham boa saúde e boa sorte. Já Jason levou o colar de relicário com a galáxia dentro, principalmente pela associação da pessoa querida com a infinidade do universo.

Depois conseguiu encontrar um conjunto de pijamas que só comprou por causa das cores, a bandeira da comunidade lésbica, não tinha como não dar esse presente para @princesasapatona, ainda mais que a amizade deles carregava aquele humor que era difícil de ser demonstrado em público. Já @sangucazul ficou com um adorno clássico japonês para os cabelos, contendo flores de cerejeiras, a mesma flor que estava no par de brincos que estava junto. Esses três presentes foram entregues sem a presença do guarda, apenas deixados em seus aposentos com um cartão natalino muito minimalista, um simples "Feliz Natal de Hansol Ji" e nada mais, porque não queria soar muito sentimental.

Enquanto @manurivr recebeu a caixinha de jóias tradicional coreana, teve um pouco mais de palavras no bilhete que deixou junto com o presente, no mesmo esquema que fez com os demais. Primeiro, fez um mapa com desenhos ensinando como usar a peça, mostrando o espaço onde saía um espelho e como as caixa de joias poderia ser usada. Junto com ele, tinha um cartão natalino em que dizia: "Escolhi uma com estampa de borboletas porque me lembra você, que vive uma metamorfose constante, quanto mais se machuca, mais se transforma e permanece incrivelmente linda! Feliz Natal!" E dessa maneira, conseguiu ficar tranquilo com uma parte da tal tradição cumprida. Ah, claro, Jochem já tinha deixado os presentes de seus pais prontos para serem entregues no dia, então ele também estava tranquilo com isso.

[lucuslavigne]

Tô escrevendo uns cenariozinhos de natal pra ir postando 😋 não são muitos, mas eu acho que vcs vão gostar

[balkanradfem]

I feel that any bad-faith argument about abortion needs to be turned into argument about quality and value of all life on earth. Because we are an intelligent species, and are capable of looking ahead and seeing the consequences of out actions.

For instance, we are living in a world with current ongoing wars, where certain people are given the orders to end thousands of lives, without any consequences or retributions. And yet this is not where pro-life is focusing their intent; apparently once babies grow up it's perfectly fine to gruesomely end those same lives in a genocide, or be starved to death during wars, that kind of thing just 'can't be helped'. But women can be pressured and guilted into birthing more babies, so apparently that's the way to go, sure way to increase the amount of suffering in the world.

But, you'll say, not all born babies will be killed off in wars (weird thing to say honestly), what about children who will live their lives safely and happily on this planet?

Well, tell me how?

Any child being born is going to experience the devastating effect of the climate change, they'll watch whole ecosystems collapse, animals going into extinction, and thousands of humans losing their homes and survival resources. They're being born into a misogynistic world, and if the child is female, she'll experience oppression that she won't even be able to prove is real to the male part of the population.

This child will grow up in the world where empathy is scarce, they'll be bombarded with news about human suffering almost every day, they're likely to come down with mental illness or at least feel that the future is bleak and brings more pain. They're also likely to fall victim to pedophiles, predators, and brainwashed boys who learned to sexually assault other kids due to the exposure of p*rn. Is pro-life trying to protect them from any of it? No. They're fighting to stop teaching them about puberty and what sex is, so once these traumatic things happen to them, they're unable to recognize them or speak about it.

But let's look into even more immediate effects of having a child born against their mother's consent. Once a baby is born, they're alive, but we all know that if they're not tended to, they'll die, experiencing nothing but pain. We always assume women will do this labour unprompted, but how can we assume this?

The forced mother, who is already traumatized from having to go trough forced birth, is likely both unwilling and without proper resources to care for a baby. The baby will feel this, they will know they're unloved. They'll know they're unwanted before they even grow up. As a solution to this, you suggest we blame and shame all mothers for not being good enough, for struggling with post-birth trauma or post-partum depression, for being unwilling to be a parent? You can't control what an unwilling mother does with her baby. You forced her to give birth but you can't do anything beyond that point.

Why did you do it? Why did you make sure a baby exists in a world where there is nobody who wants them, is willing to take care of them or give them a good life? What is it worth to you if there's another unwanted, unloved, suffering child out there? Does it make your life better if there's more human suffering? Do you fight for support of new mothers, for better healthcare, for better resources to take care of abandoned babies, for better institutions to take care of unwanted children? No. You feel entitled to women's unlimited labour and endless caretaking of children they don't want. You don't want to acknowledge it's undertaking of a huge scale, that requires endless resources, finances, complete exhaustion, loss of health, sleep, protection, sometimes education and career. It's nothing to you. Loss of quality of life, for everyone involved, means nothing to you.

As long as there is more human suffering. As long as mother didn't get any say over whether she'll become a mother or not, and how many times, and when. As long as her life was put at risk without her consent. As long as she was punished for something you consider she should be punished for.

And now I'm going to circle back to where I started, the war. Because mothers have to watch their children both go to war, risk their lives in war, and be killed in wars. After putting that endless amount of energy and resources to grow and raise a single child, they'll have to watch them go to slaughter. And what happens if a child dies, as a solider in a war? Mother gets payment for it. That's right. For having that child murdered by someone else, the mother will get paid. Murder of that child is not only okay, legal, approved by government and somehow necessary, but is also rewardable to the mother, who, had she refused to birth that same child, causing zero suffering to ensue, would have been punished. Nobody except the mother can get punished.

If the child was killed in a war, and not a soldier, nothing. Apparently loss of life with extreme amount of human suffering, is worth absolutely nothing. But refusing to put that life out there, is a punishable crime. Because it only matters if it's unborn or a newborn. Once that same baby grows up, it's slaughter time. Humans apparently lose value after they grow up, they're only worth as 'endless human potential' in unwilling hands, but after they've reached the age of 'not a baby anymore', worthless.

We have observed the world for long enough to see the consequences of the actions we make. Women are the only ones who can and should decide whether they are willing and able to bring another life into the world, that is worth living, that will provide a life which is livable, enjoyable, worth being alive for. Life is extremely precious and bringing it into the world where it will be subjected to neglect, torture, and possibly a painful death, is unacceptable.

Caring for mother's rights is the first thing that will improve any child's quality of life. Caring about the environment is the second. Ending wars and debilitating male's ability to even start a war, is a fight for life. Not fighting for them to take control of female bodies, which they'll use to make themselves endless supply of soldiers, endless war resources. Taking control from women always means putting it in hands of m*n, who don't find any problem with human suffering, who celebrate wars, find themselves at home doing massive murdering, torturing and raping of women and children.

Women in charge of life means making life compatible with joy, love, care and warmth. We are the only ones who give children have safety, community, care and protection only a willing mother can give. You're wrangling it away from us further away from control the women are. We are fighting for a world where every mother is willing, and every child wanted. Why aren't you?